


Envenomation

by Certified Valve Charger (Interrobam)



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Biology, Aphrodisiacs, Bad end, Begging, Biting, Brainwashing, Breeding, Claiming, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dirty Bad Wrong, Drug-Induced Sex, Drugged Sex, Dubious Ethics, Egg Laying, Eggpreg, Emotional Manipulation, Fluid Kink, Fucked Silly, Impaired Judgement, Impregnation, Living Fucktoy, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Memory gaps, Mind Break, Mind Manipulation, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Oviposition, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sex, Power Dynamics, Psychiatric Abuse, Rape, Reprogramming, Ruined for Sex, Sex Addiction, Unhealthy Relationships, induced heat, messy sex, noncon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 16:30:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4312293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interrobam/pseuds/Certified%20Valve%20Charger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" “I’m sorry Whirl, but my answer is ‘no.’ What you are suggesting, a romantic relationship between the two of us, it would be terribly inappropriate,” Rung replied, firmly but with a warm tone. Whirl narrowed his optic slightly, antennae twitching. He did not seem particularly perturbed by Rung’s response. The therapist worried that it was not because he had accepted his answer as much as he was confident that he could change it. "</p><p>Rung rebuffs Whirl’s advances, so the rotary takes matters into his own claws.</p><p>or</p><p>Once you go Whirl, it’s physiologically impossible to go back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Innoculation

**Author's Note:**

> In case the tags hadn’t clued you in, this fic contains explicit and eroticized scenes of non-consensual sex. While characters in the fic, and even the narrative framing, may depict this in an ambiguous or even positive way, I want to make clear that it is never acceptable for someone to sexually exploit another person. Whether it happens in person, online, or through any other medium, whether the perpetrator uses force, coercion, deception, guilt, or any other means of exploitation, it is wrong. There is not and will never be a "good reason" for someone to sexually touch another person, or expose them to sexual material, without having been given explicit, informed, continuous consent. Chances are you already realize this, but I personally feel it is important to reiterate when posting something like, well, this,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic uses fairly standard spike/valve interfacing setup with a few differences: the spike (formally called the aedeagus) is an extension of the exterior node, the opening of the valve has a fringe of small tentacles (formally called external cilium), and everyone has an ovipositor which is normally sheathed within the walls of their valve.
> 
> Mind the tags friends, Whirl has all sorts of nastiness planned for Rung and he’s gonna get away with all of it.

“What do you say, Doc?”

Rung smiled kindly at the wide yellow optic currently affixed with unnerving steadiness on him. This was far from the first time in his career that he had encountered romantic transference. He had to admit he was a bit shocked that it was _Whirl_ of all ‘bots coming to him with it, considering his disposition and general aversion to expressions of affection-- or as he generally labeled it, “mushy stuff.” Still, it was important not to let his surprise leak into his field or faceplate.

“I’m sorry Whirl, but my answer is ‘no.’ What you are suggesting would be terribly inappropriate,” he replied, firmly but with a warm tone. Whirl narrowed his optic slightly, antennae twitching. He did not seem particularly perturbed by Rung’s response. The therapist suspected it was not because he had accepted his answer as much as he was confident that he could change it.

“I thought you were single?” the rotary asked, confirming Rung’s hunch.

“Well, yes, that is true.” He nodded slightly as he responded. Whirl’s optic spiralled suddenly narrow.

“You’re a hot piece of aft!” he declared. Rung tried and failed to hide the snort of laughter that this assertion provoked.

“If you say so. Still-”

“And _I’m_ a hot piece of aft!”

“Ye-” he began, then cleared his voxcoder loudly, hoping to cover up his slip. “Whirl,” his voice lost some of it’s customary warmth, he met Whirl’s optic steadily with his. “That is beside the point. It is completely normal to have those sorts of feelings about one’s therapist. My job is to listen to you, to help you when you are experiencing difficult times and troubling emotions. And sometimes that... can feel like being in love. But you must understand, it is not possible for me to reciprocate.”

“You’re saying you don’t... care about me Doc?” Whirl asked, a ripple of genuine _hurt_ shooting through his field before he pulled it in tight.

“No, no Whirl that isn’t it at all,” Rung rushed to assure the other mecha, putting his hand to his sparkplate to emphasize his sincerity. “I do care, _genuinely,_ about your happiness and wellbeing.” Whirl considered this silently, optic fixed on his claws, which he scythed back and forth. A nervous habit. “And...” Rung paused, gave a moment of consideration towards how exactly to phrase his next comment. “And you should know, Whirl, that it is nothing about you as an _individual_ that leads me to rebuff you. Just the sensitive nature of our professional relationship.” Whirl’s helm darted upward, his optic cycled wide.

“So if I got a different shrink-”

“Former patients are also off limits, I’m afraid,” Rung added, cutting the rotary off before he voiced his conclusion. Whirl exvented sharply, clicked his talons in irritation.

“Why _not_?” he asked, his voice almost whiny. “I’d get it if _you_ were trying to get into my plating and I _wasn’t_ into it, but I’m the one having the bright ideas here.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I have _power_ over you,” Rung said. Whirl’s stabilisers flinched, a clear sign of displeasure. “Administratively,” the psychiatrist attempted to clarify “...and also emotionally,” he risked, trying to keep his smile light. “I could _hurt_ you, Whirl.” Whirl didn’t respond, seemed lost in thought, optic cycling in consideration. Rung waited patiently for the rotary to speak again. Whirl was the kind of mecha who rarely let silences linger, but he just continued to stare at Rung with unerring focus. Rung restarted his vocaliser manually, glanced down at his notes.

“I hope you do not experience my reaction as if it were intended to chastise you for expressing your feelings. That is the _last_ thing I want. You sharing these desires with me can allow us to uncover your real needs and seek out alternative methods for satisfying them.” Whirl quirked his antennae, a welcome sign that he was returning to his more mischievous demeanor.

“Are you suggesting I self service, Doc?” he teased. Rung chuckled, shook his helm.

“Ah, no, nothing of the sort. I mean, of course, if you wish to do so, if you think it would help, there’s no reason _not_ to. But I was thinking more that,” he paused, biting his lower lip slightly in thought and trying to ignore the way Whirl’s optic flickered immediately to the movement. “...It is certainly true that touch is therapeutic. You may well remember we’ve spoken before about the dearth of physical contact you experience-- in your cycle to cycle life-- that is not violent or hostile in nature. If you wish to experiment with expressions of platonic affection, I could try to provide an environment in which to explore said interactions.” _This_ seemed of interest to Whirl. His optic flickered from Rung’s mouth to his hands, interlaced on his lap.

“Like how?” he asked.

“Well, I have patients who like to hug after particularly stressful sessions. Some of them find comfort in having their servos held while they disclose difficult histories. Things of that nature.” Rung projected ease and welcoming affection through his field in a cautious effort to assure the rotary that his offer was genuine.

“I think…” Whirl seemed to be giving deep consideration to his words, something Rung rarely saw him do, and he made a brief notation on his datapad. “I think I could use a hug right now Doc.”

“Now?” he asked, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

“Yeah, _now_ ,” Whirl snapped, then twitched his stabilisers in embarrassment and averted his optic. Rung inwardly chastised himself for his insensitive reaction, tried to mend it with a sincere smile.

“Alright then.” He placed his notes carefully to the side, onto the nearby desk, and rose from his chair. Whirl stood in turn, albeit slower. Rung stepped slightly to the side of his cockpit and gently wrapped an arm around his waist, though he had to reach upwards to do so. Whirl knelt down a tad, wrapped his own arm around the smaller mecha. “How is this?” Rung carefully rested the side of his helm to the side of Whirl’s cockpit, feeling the gentle rumble of his motor. Whirl’s claws rested at his waist, as first nervously, lightly, and then with a bit more pressure. Rung hummed soothingly, his own arms clasped behind the Rotary’s back. “Please inform me if you wish to-” Whirl’s claws began to wander lower, he exvented in mind exasperation.

“ _Whi_ \- oh!” his admonishment was cut off as the rotary grasped his aft firmly, lifting him up and depositing him on his desk with a heavy clang that sent styluses scattering. He parted his lips to demand an explanation, but Whirl shoved a talon between them before he could vocalise, pressing down his glossa and distorting his voxcoder. Whirl pushed him onto his back, the curve of his backpack elevating him like an upturned cybertortoise. Hips lifted into the air, he kicked his pedes futilely. Whirl pressed between his legs and ground his pelvic plating against Rung’s interface panel, and the therapist squawked in protest. With the pathways of his intake disrupted his oral lubricant was drizzling into his voxcoder, making it gurgle and pop.

“Shh its okay, relax Doc,” Whirl said, his voice far too calm and far too soothing.

“Sthop,” Rung said, as authoritatively as he could with a talon shoved down his intake. His servos scrambled at Whirl’s wrist, but he could only manage to budge Whirl enough to cut his own glossa for his efforts. He tasted partially processed energon and hissed static. Whirl began bending over him, helm ducking down with an air of intent. Rung took his hands from where they had been scrambling uselessly at his wrist and shoved the rotary's helm away from his.

“Wohrl sth- sctop!” the psychiatrist yelped, optics wide with panic as he battered against Whirl’s helm. He tried to kick him as well, but the space was too cramped, Whirl was pressed too flush to his hips. Whirl ignored his protests, trying to bring his helm towards Rung’s neck, only to be shoved away. He darted his free claw forward and trapped one of Rung’s wrists, twisting his arm back and out of the way. With only one hand to belay him, Whirl easily slipped his helm against the side of Rung’s neck. Then there were two sharp pains, what felt like- like _punctures_ to one of his main fuel lines. Rung choked against the talon in his intake, cleaning fluid gathering on the lenses of his optics. He beat his fist against Whirl’s helm as hard as he could, but the ex-Wrecker barely seemed to notice.

A message popped up in his vision, a warning that foreign contaminants had entered his fuel system, inquiring whether he wished to divert the contaminated fuel from vital systems. He tried to respond to the alert, but the talon in his mouth made vocal commands impossible, and before he could send an internal command the prompt flickered out of his vision. Another alert, this one about damage- damage to- the glyphs scrambled as that message also vanished, and Rung thrashed against Whirl’s grip on him with renewed vigour. His trapped wrist rattled against the blades of the rotary’s claw, he tried to shake his head, choked. He wanted to ask what was happening, what Whirl had done. There was a sudden pain that seemed to shoot through the whole of his sensornet, icy and jagged.

His limbs twitched and jerked without coordination, then began to relax and grow heavy without his consent, responding sluggishly if at all to his orders. Whirl released his hand, and it dropped numbly against the surface of his desk. He gave a final kick of his pede before his legs too went limp. At some point during the struggle Whirl’s cooling fans had clicked on, and Rung was painfully aware of their whirring as Whirl raised his helm from his neck, gently pulled his talon out of his intake. He wanted to scream, he wanted to thrash. His body denied him, remained still and plaint.

“No,” he whimpered through a haze of static, panic rising in his spark.

“Shh Doc, relax, _relax_ ,” Whirl cooed quietly into his audial. “It helps to relax the first time, not fight it,” he murmured. Fight- fight _what?_ First _what?_ What did- Whirl began rubbing the flat of his claw in soothing circles against the side of Rung’s neck. _Oh_ , that felt... nice? Yes, _nice_. The cold rush had left his sensornet, replaced with a warm sort of tingling crackle. Whirl moved his other claw, still slick with oral lubricant, down the length of Rung’s body. Pleasure shot out from the point of contact like embers from a flame. The talon trailed lower, lower, almost to- his interfacing panel snapped open and his optics widened. He hadn’t given- His system’s hadn’t even _notified-_ Whirl thrust the length of his spike in and Rung heard an obscene, almost pornoraphic moan. It took him a moment to realise he was the one making it. Oh, oh no this was- this was not- Whirl pulled back and thrust again, to the hilt, and Rung groaned, his sensory nodes sending waves of heat through his frame.

“S- s t stop” his voxcoder fritzed, he let out a distorted sob.

“Shhh… It’s okay, this is okay.” Part of Rung wanted to scream that no, no this was _not_ okay, but it was becoming difficult to remember _why_ , exactly, it wasn’t. In any case, that part of him was being very much overruled by the rest of his body. Whirl shifted his stance, placed his claws back on Rung’s waist and moved his body to a more accessible angle, and when he thrust all the way in once more Rung let out a crackling _mewl_ of need. “Aw, you like that? Hm Doc?” Rung nodded frantically, emitted a stuttering moan the likes of which he had not even thought himself capable of. Oh, he liked that, he _very much_ liked that. The fringe of tendrils around his valve came to life, smearing freshly produced lubricant around his entrance and grasping outwards. “Good, oh- hmn... You should be able to move again.” Rung shuttered his optics, not certain what Whirl could be talking about, but an experimental attempt to hook his leg around the larger mecha’s hip was successful on the third try, and he was also able to move a shaky hand up to pet the side of Whirl’s helm. “Good. I was worried that- I mean everything _seemed_ to be up to code but when you have a four million year dry streak, uh, of _sorts_ -” Whirl’s spike knocked against the bundle of circuitry that made up Rung’s ceiling node and he clenched the mesh of his valve tight, sobbed out the rotary’s name as overload tore through his sensornet, dispersed charge flickering over his frame. He grasped Whirl’s helm in his hands and pulled him forward, sucking at the rim of his optic casing and flicking his tongue against Whirl’s intake slot in messy approximation of a kiss. He wrapped his other leg around Whirl’s hips and _squeezed_ , pulling the rotary fully inside of him. He ground his hips against the larger mecha, his tendrils pulling greedily at Whirl’s.

“More,” he chirped, venting heavily against Whirl’s optic ridge. Whirl grunted in satisfaction, chuckled at the back of his voxcoder.

“Don’t worry Doc,” he said, “So long as you’re _demanding_ , I’m _supplying_.”

**\---**

Rung came out of recharge with a jolt. He scrambled to sit up, venting hard, and was hit by a wave of nausea. He groaned, reached to pinch the bridge of his nasal ridge, but fumbled on a cold band of steel. He’d recharged in his glasses? He reached to the side of his helm, removing them with one servo and kneading the soft metal of his faceplate with the other. Odd. He replaced his scopes, turning to swing his legs over the edge of his slab, and winced. His joints were protesting more than usual this cycle. He leaned down to retrieve his backpack from its customary place, propped up along the side of the bed, but his servos met bare air. He reset his optics blearily, tilting his helm. That was odd. He glanced around his room, unable to detect a hint of the orange barrow. He felt his spark clench with anxiety, knowing full well it was irrational but unable to stem it. This wasn’t pre war times, he told himself, the functionists weren’t going to throw him back in jail for walking around without his anatomical feint. If he had misplaced his backpack it would be inconvenient to carry large loads, but it would not be the end of the cybertronian race itself.

But where could it have- Oh of _course_. It had gotten in Whirl’s way while they were interfacing, so he had removed it and left it by his desk. Rung hopped down from the slab to stand on his pedes, taking his first step forward before he realised _exactly_ what he’d just thought.

“I did _what_?” he said aloud and not particularly quietly, feeling nausea hit him at full force once more. He’d taken it off while he was doing _what_? With _who_? A bolt of confusion and horror shot through his spark, he curled his servos into tight fists, but quickly shook his helm and offlined his optics. No no, that hadn’t happened, that couldn’t have happened. It must have been... lingering feedback from his defragmentation cycle. He searched his processor. He had memories of… of interfacing with Whirl, yes, but they were hazy and insubstantial, without any real narrative or order. His other memories from the past cycle were, in comparison, still fairly crisp and organised. Yes, it had just been a fantasy.

Why was he fantasizing about a patient? About _Whirl_?

“No, no, be logical about this,” he tried to reassure himself, scanning his room once more for his wheelbarrow and finding it still absent. Recharge feedback was just a byproduct of the processor encoding memory into long term storage. It was an attempt to put in order the events of the past cycle, a jumble of random data which the brain module shaped into a narrative. Sometimes they held personal significance to the mechen who had them, but mostly because of their reactions to them, not _inherently_. It was not an expression of a desire, of a fantasy. He couldn’t figure out _what_ in the previous cycle could have prompted his processor to show him _those_ kinds of images, but he would have to engage in self analysis some other time. He had to get his files in order for his sessions that cycle.

He felt strangely eerie as he walked down the small stretch of hallway between his hab suite and his office. It was probably the loss of his backpack, he rationalised, the familiar weight of it on his shoulders replaced by unfamiliar exposure. He typed in the code to unlock his office for the day, stepped into the entranceway, the door sliding quietly back in place behind him, and froze.

 _Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no- it had been_ recharge feedback _it had to have been-_ Rung felt suddenly, dangerously dizzy, slammed his servo to brace himself against the wall behind him and avoid collapsing to the floor. _No it can’t have been_ real _it can’t- it had been a_ byproduct of the defragmentation cycle _\- it- no no_ no _._

His office smelled sharply of ozone and transfluid. His desk was a mess, energon cubes and datapads had been knocked to the floor to clear its surface, and the chair he typically sat in had been overturned. Venturing closer, he could make out faint paint transfers and a mix of dried lubricant and transfluid on its surface, along with a conspicuously claw shaped dent in the wall where Whirl had braced himself against it, and several more scratches elsewhere. His wheelbarrow was exactly where he had remembered placing it. He stared at the disorder with wild optics for what felt like joors. A preset alert reminding him he had an assessment scheduled in a tribreem jolted him out of his shock.

He had to clean this up. He immediately walked over to the climate control panel and started up the air filtration system on full blast. Rummaging through his cabinets produced a bottle of solvent and a mesh rag, which he took to the desk while his processor raced. It had happened, it had _really happened_. He felt ill to the bottom of his spark. What had come over him that he had- that he had thought it would be acceptable to interface with Whirl? Whirl who had been so evasive and so resistant to any attempt to empathise with him, Whirl who so desperately needed kindness but refused to accept it. Whirl who needed a sympathetic ear perhaps more than any other bot on this ship, Whirl who had come to _trust_ him. And what had Rung done with that trust? He had betrayed him, he’d _ruined_ whatever good he had been able to do.

The paint transfers and stains removed, he folded the rag and recapped the solvent, putting them back in their proper place and then kneeling to gather up the debris on the floor. Thankfully none of the cubes had ruptured and spilled.

He’d have to report this to Ultra Magnus. Magnus would take away his license. Rung felt dread and fear settle over his frame and chill his fuel lines, immediately chastised himself for the emotions. How could he feel bad for _himself_ in a situation like this? He placed the datapads at the far corner of his desk, the energon and styluses on the tray beside it. His hands were shaking. He had an assessment scheduled in a breem and-- Primus how was he going to see patients knowing-- he bowed his helm. He selfishly wanted to keep the appointments he had scheduled for the day, to return at least briefly to some facade of normalcy. Turning to survey his office, he caught sight of the upturned chair, bent down to lift it back into place. There. Everything had been righted, at least superficially. It was too short term to cancel now. It would be better to continue on as if nothing had happened, at least for the next joors, to be able to think about something, _anything_ else. He had already betrayed _one_ patient, he could not tolerate the thought of abandoning several others. They deserved... they at least deserved the time he had promised them.

Once he was done, the _moment_ he was done, he would tell Ultra Magnus.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to hamfootsia for making the original post that inspired this fic and also to jetandsilver for convincing me to actually write this shameful parade of licentiousness may Primus have mercy on all of our souls.


	2. Booster Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whirl manages to talk Rung out of a bad decision. Rung experiences withdrawal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typing "spike" like a million times is boring to me (even tho for some reason "valve" isn't?) so heads up that the part of the interfacing array that becomes pressurised and capable of penetration will also be called "primary" "cable" and "'deagus"

The rest of the cycle was strangely normal. Once he had calmed himself, done a few venting exercises, his processor felt clear and calm. His patients certainly did not seem to notice anything different, about either him or his office. No one so much as commented about his missing backpack. He slipped so easily back into his normal routine that he could nearly forget that what had happened last cycle had been real. But as soon as he had seen off his last patient for the day his spark lurched once more in trepidation. He walked back to his desk, sat down and glanced over the datapads scattered there. The thought occurred to him that he should organise his notes one last time... they would be needed by his patients’ new psychiatrists.

"Hey Doc, you busy?" Rung started as if electrocuted, dropped the datapads he had picked up and whipped his helm around to see Whirl standing in his doorway. His voxcoder clicked uselessly, he reset it.

"I- uh..." he began, grabbing at his notes with shaking hands. "N no, my appointments for the day have... Whirl, it-"

"Great session we had yesterday, huh?" the rotary commented, engine revving for emphasis. Rung flinched, dropping his notes again and lifting his hands to cover his face.

"Whirl I- I don't know how I can even _begin_ to apologise," his voice was too high, too emotional, Primus he was making it _worse_!

"Apol-” Whirl quirked his helm. “What are you talking about Eyebrows?"

"What happened, what I did to you last cycle after, after our appointment." Rung looked up towards Whirl but couldn't meet his optics, glanced to the side. Whirl chuckled nervously.

"Uh Doc, how much exactly do you remember from last cycle? Because I wasn't exactly comming for help."

"That doesn't matter," Rung shouted, his voice nearing a hysterical pitch. When Whirl fliched back in surprise he bowed his head again, dug his fingers into the sides of his helm. "Sorry I- I should not have shouted, but what... happened, it was an abuse of my authority, it was-"

"Doc-"

"Rest assured." Rung's voxcoder cracked, he reset it for what was starting to feel like the hundredth time. "Rest assured I have no intentions of covering up my- what I did. I was just preparing to meet with Ultra Magnus and issue a full confession. If you wish to- to speak to him first I will wait of course but-"

"Hold on now,” Whirl interrupted. “What happens if you give this confession? You pay, like, a _fine_ or...?"

"I might lose my license I- I _should_ lose my licence.” Rungs voice was skipping nervously as he babbled. “Imprisonment is also likely. If you wish to press additional charges of course it is well within your rights, but you won't be forced to if you don't wish. I will hand over all of my files to Magnus and he'll- he'll find you other therapists to see, if you wish, if you think you could-" Rung didn't bother resetting his vocaliser, just vented hard and shook his head wearily before glancing up at the rotary standing at in his office.

Whirl said nothing, but his optic cycled unnervingly wide. Rung looked away under its scrutiny, wrung his hands.

"I'm not mad," Whirl started, cautiously. "You don't need to tell-"

"No, I _have_ to confess." Rung stood, afraid that his nerve might fail him, abandoning his notes on his desk and walking towards the exit, maintaining a careful distance from Whirl. "I'm a danger to you, I'm a danger to my other patients. If you wish I will not disclose that- that it was _you_ who I victimised... Would you prefer that?" Whirl was silent, Rung lingered a few paces from the door, awaiting his response, optics darting at the floor. Whirl spread his arms, holding them up towards the smaller mecha.

"Don't I get a hug first?"

"A- a what?" Rung reset his audials, his optics.

"A hug? You know how you told me we were gonna start doing that after sessions? Giving me that, uh, nonviolent physical contact. I want one."

"I... don't think that's a good idea," Rung said in a weak voice, he could feel his hands start shaking again.

"It would give me, what is it, closure?" Whirl quirked his optic into a welcoming smile, wiggled his claws for emphasis. Rung mouthed silently, trying to find words to express what an _untenably_ terrible idea that sounded like considering, considering- " _Pleeeease_ Doc?" the rotary whined.

Rung vented, walked over to Whirl and wrapped an arm around the back of his shoulder, avoiding prolonged contact. Whirl wrapped his arms around the psychiatrist, pressing their frames together uncomfortably tight and bowing his helm over his shoulder. Rung pat his back stiffly, keeping his field tight to his frame.

"Alright Whirl, I think-" There was a sudden cold sting, twin pinpricks of pain at the back of his neck. Rung barely had time to register the sensation before the room spun with whiplash abruptness. His knees felt suddenly weak, his legs almost strutless. He scraped his fingers against Whirl's plating, digging into transformation seams for purchase as he felt himself slump towards the floor. Whirl steadied him, puts a claw low around his hip, curving over his aft. The touch felt electric, his interfacing panels snapped open. He did not register the sound over his-- when did his fans turn on-- but the rush of cool air against the sensitive exposed mesh made him abundantly aware of being exposed. What was... this wasn't... Whirl moved his claws to his waist, gently lifted him entirely off his pedes. His limbs dangled, they felt heavy and strangely warm. This was... bad... this shouldn't be...

"Whirl," his voice came out slurred, his voxcoder too clumsy to form words for the rest of his thought. _Whirl, what's happening? Whirl, there's something wrong, something bad._

Whirl didn't show signs of hearing him, backing up slowly to sit on the couch. He brought Rung down to sit on his lap, his legs folded beneath him, spread around Whirl's own thighs. Something was _wrong_ about this. He had to tell Whirl, Whirl had to be warned about- about whatever was- Rung whimpered, shuttering his optics against the cleaning fluid pooling there. Whirl let out a soothing hiss of static, moved his claws to his hips and nudged him down. Rung vented sharply, actuators tensing as he sunk down onto Whirl's spike and oh, oh that felt _good_... Whirl's cord was already fully pressurised, firm and hot and pressing against every node. The rotary’s tendrils followed, wriggling in past the lips of his valve, curling around his own rapidly pressurizing primary, his own tendrils. Rung moaned softly, burying his face against Whirl's shoulder. Whirl let out a small giggle, antennae twitching, and his spike felt _perfect_ inside of Rung and... No... that was- Whirl's spike inside him was- A jolt of guilt and dread and _shame_ shot through his spark.

"N no, can't, isn't... _can't_..." he couldn't make the words come out correctly " _Wrong_ ," he sobbed. "M Magnus, need t to-" his vocaliser fritzed as he stuttered, desperately trying to make Whirl understand. He pulled back, lifting his hips, trying to untangle their tendrils so that he could get it out and- Whirl's claws on his hips were tight enough to dent, he slammed Rung back down, _hard_ , his actuators screaming in protest at the strain. Whirl leaned back, shifting his weight and _grinding_ his primary inside Rung's valve, sending his sensory nodes into a frenzy. The psychiatrist vented shallowly, mouth gaping, his frame alit. He could feel Whirl's tendrils twisting possessively around his own, securing his cord even deeper into his valve, wrapping around the base of his own ‘deagus. Oh, oh that was good that was _so good_ so full so _tight_.

"Listen Doc, callin old Mags is, uh, not a good idea ok? Probably- probably telling anyone about this would be a bad idea. I don't want you getting in trouble and- uh, all things considered _I_ really need to stay out of trouble too. So- so I _really_ need you to keep this quiet. If you tell anyone it would be- uh- a breach of confidentiality or something. So don't talk about any of this alright? Not to anyone besides _me_." Something about what Whirl was saying didn't... it wasn't... it was _wrong_. Rung shook his head frantically, concentrating so hard that he felt as if his processor was about to overheat, every scrap of willpower devoted to puzzling out his words.

"Whirl... you... p patient. Isn't... good." He met Whirl's optic with desperate intensity, urging him to understand, Whirl narrowed his optic and hummed static. He bowed his neck, rubbing his helm against the side of Rung's. Rung flinched, lifting his shoulder to protect the sensitive cables of his neck, but Whirl nuzzled insistently at his jaw, and Rung relaxed to give him access. He felt a brief sharp sting and then the world seemed to melt away before his optics, the walls of his office becoming vague and intangible, the only reality composed of Whirl's frame against him, his spike inside. For a second he grasped at words, at thoughts. Surely he had been- something he'd been... saying...Whirl thrust upwards with a grunt and his sensornet screamed, every node in his body seemed to light up with charge. Overload hit him hard, he yelped so loudly that Whirl flinched back, but barely registered it beyond the crashing waves of pleasure.

"Good thing your office is soundproof eh Eyebrows?" He couldn't make sense of the words, couldn't parse what the mecha beneath him was trying to say, but oh it was good it was _so good_ oh. He squeezed hard around the spike inside of him, tangled his tendril until they nearly knotted, and Whirl overloaded. The gush of transfluid was hot and wet and made Rung overload a second time. He keened, his fingers scrambling and scraping at Whirl's back, jerking his hip up and slamming them back down, riding Whirl's still pressurized cord like his very life was hanging in the balance. Whirl’s moan of pleasure was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

"D Doc, listen up: I know you're in- _Primus_ , in la la land right now, but you gotta remember this. You're not going to tell anyone about our little, uh, tryst. Not Ultra Magnus, not Rodders, not Drift or Ratchet or Cyclonus or- oh _frag_ , or anyone ok?" Rung sobbed, burying his face in Whirl's neck and babbling incoherent pleas as his frame flared with yet another overload. "This is a secret. Remember that. It's gotta _stay_ a secret." Rung made no sign of having heard him, rutting his dripping spike against Whirl's abdomen with a pathetic whimper. Whirl hummed in approval, nuzzling his neck. “Good ‘bot.”

**\---**

Rung's memory failed him after that. There were vague blurs, noises and sensations and things Whirl told him to remember for later, but nothing made a single coherent picture. His first glimmers of lucidity didn't come to him until he was in the wash racks, dousing his frame in cleaning solvent. Even then he felt disconnected to his frame, his hands going through the motions of cleaning automatically, lost in a pleasurable haze and ignorant of anything beyond the immediate. He didn't have a memory that seemed entirely real until he woke up at the start of the next orn, three cycles later.

At first he tried desperately to convince himself that the whole thing had been one long, impossible recharge fantasy, but he knew in his spark it wasn’t. He _knew_ it was real, had happened, yet his memories still remained strangely hazy and vague. He could clearly recall the events of the cycle-- what he had done, whom he had spoken to-- until about a breem before his… encounter. But after that the details sort of melted into a soup of vague sensations and disorganised flashes of visual and auditory data, and then eventually gave out entirely. Perhaps even _more_ troubling than the gaps in his memory, the fog distorting his thoughts, was the fact that he could not incite himself to _care_ very much about it.

There were certainly less pleasant ways to spend a few cycles. He knew that this was… odd, irregular, atypical. But was it _bad_? He felt it should be bad, but he was coming up with no justifications to support this conclusion. He hadn’t had any patients’ appointments scheduled over the period of lost time, so he wasn’t compromising their care. Apparently he had remembered to keep himself fueled and clean. It seemed that the more likely cause of his dysphoria was lingering guilt about… Whirl. Every time he remembered what he had done his hands twitched with guilt, his audial crackled with the urge to- to confess- to tell _someone_ , but he couldn’t-- _why not_ \-- he _couldn’t_. Arguments against informing someone were more easily found: it would be a breach of confidentiality, it would get Whirl in trouble, Whirl had said he _shouldn’t_.

Talking about what had happened was- he couldn’t do it. With anyone besides Whirl, at least, and he was entirely unsure of his ability to… control himself if he found himself alone with the rotary again. With no one to consult about his problem, Rung resolved to reflect on the issue independently in hopes of finding a solution.

**\---**

He soon realised that solving this on his own would be much, _much_ more difficult than he had anticipated. Two cycles after his last encounter, Rung awoke with a slight soreness in his joints, a faint itching that scrambled evasively up and down his frame. Waking up to pain was not, in and of itself, completely out of place in Rung’s life. His sensornet sometimes ached, a parting gift from the Functionist regime, a testament to their spirit of scientific inquiry and disregard for bodily autonomy. But those aches came in patterns, along old weldlines and the casing of his Tcog, certain places on his arm and back. Those aches coincided with fluctuations in the radiation levels, humidity and temperature of his environment. This pain was different. This pain was universal, seemingly without a source or trigger. The sensation was worrisome, but Rung resolved to ignore it as best he could. In any case, it wasn’t unbearable.

Unfortunately as the cycles went on his symptoms multiplied, became more and more pronounced. The ache in his joints turned from mild twinges to sharp pains, making even the once simple task of walking from his office to his hab suite arduous. The itching turned frantic, he frequently caught himself scraping at his plating, despite getting no relief from the action. Splitting processor aches would swoop down and send ringing through his audials. His servos had begun trembling, he had lost his appetite for fuel. This was far worse than old weldlines acting up.

Further complicating matters, he was beginning to suspect there was something wrong with his circuitry monitoring system. It was normal to experience small variations in circuit strength, conductivity, sensitivity, route, composition from cycle to cycle. But for the past few orns he had noticed he was getting the same exact numbers every time he requested a status report, right down to the decimals. He had tried to extract a comprehensive list of the data, but he kept getting corrupted glyphs, readouts that made no sense. He was certain there was something wrong with him, with his sensornet if not his processor. Ratchet would know, Ratchet would be able to help. Rung knew he should make an appointment, but he kept putting it off. He was probably fine: his systems were old, they could get glitchy sometimes. If Ratchet asked if anything about his behavior had changed lately... Rung cringed. He couldn’t tell Ratchet, it was a _secret_.

To make things worse yet, trying to reflect on what exactly had happened over the hazy latter sections of those two cycles was becoming less and less productive over time. Mindful reflection had helped him to recover a rough timeline of events, but further thought into the matter brought him only to distraction. Simply thinking about Whirl interfacing with him had his valve leaking lubricant, his spike readying to pressurise, his tendrils rubbing against each other in a frenzy. Self servicing could provide relief, but only for half a cycle at most. And he found himself more often than not self servicing to the very memories he was trying to clarify. Only partially remembered in the first place and now mixed with details from his own imagination, Rung soon had trouble telling fantasy from memory.

He began spending most of his recreational time at Swerve’s. At least there the temptation to fantasize would be lesser, tempered by the public venue. His servos were too unsteady to work on his models, but he could read a datapad. He needed the distraction, especially as his pain started to worsen. The whole of his reserves of mental fortitude were going towards his practice. Concentrating on his patients’ needs and troubles always took a toll, as any sort of work did, but it had become exhausting in the face of his aching frame.

He was trying to parse some poetry written in old cybertronian (he’d gotten pitifully rusty at it)-- in an effort to distract himself from less than savory thoughts and renew his social energy-- when suddenly he felt an odd, warm _calm_ wash over him. The nervous spinning of his spark slowed, the buzzing in his helm settled somewhat. The pain was not gone by any stretch of the imagination, but it had lost its edge. He exvented, perhaps a bit too loudly, in relief. Perhaps he had finally gotten over the worst of whatever illness or disorder had gripped his frame.

“Hiya Doc!” Whirl’s voice, far too close and loud-- how had he snuck up like that-- burst into Rung’s audial and he let out a shocked yelp, fumbled with his datapad. He avoided dropping it, but only barely, glanced to the side to see Whirl’s optic dancing in mischief.

“H hello Whirl,” his voice sounded terribly strange, more languid than he had expected.

“We’re still on for our appointment next cycle, right?”

“Yes, I-” Rung reset his voxcoder with a grind, adjusted his scopes. “We are indeed, Whirl.”

“Good” Whirl chirped, putting a friendly claw on Rung’s shoulder. It took all of the psychiatrist’s willpower not to _melt_ into the touch. His sensornet still ached, but his processor, his _spark_ , felt miraculous eased.He’d never noticed that before, how soothing Whirl’s EM field was. Perhaps he had always been too caught up in assessing, in _analyzing_ it. It felt good, the press of it against his own, warm and dynamic and crackling. Primus, he felt he could just slip into recharge.

“Alright then!” Whirl said, removing his claw. Rung started, realising with a flush of embarrassment that he had offlined his optics and begun slumping in his seat. He straightened his spinal strut and stared hard at his datapad in an effort to avoid the rotary’s optics. “See you Doc!”

Rung hummed in response as Whirl beeped merrily and took off for the other side of the bar. As soon as his field faded out of range Rung became acutely reacquainted with the pinching feeling in his knees, the buzzing in his audials. His spark began to thrum unpleasantly. He felt a sense of dread, vivid yet somehow unparseable, settle into his pulsing spark.

 


	3. Substitution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung resists Whirl's persuasive arguments, continues to pursue alternative treatment.

 It didn’t matter that Rung was expecting Whirl to arrive on that cycle, at that time, for his appointment: the sight of the rotary in his doorway still made his spark hitch. He invented shakily, focused on keeping his hands steady as he placed his stylus and datapad down on the surface of his desk and stood. He took a moment to steel himself before looking back up.

“Hello Whirl,” he said carefully as he crossed the room to sit at the chair beside the recharge slab, keeping his tone steady despite the crawling feeling of being cornered by Whirl’s gaze. Whirl’s optic flickered, reset into a cheerful curve, and he paced jauntily over to the same corner.

“Hey Doc, how’s tricks?” Whirl sat instead of laying down, as usual, but today Rung found himself distracted by his stance, thighs spread and legs dangling over the edge. The psychiatrist interlaced his fingers and looked down at his notes, trying to use the rims of his goggles as blinders.

"Whirl I... think we need to talk," he began in a careful voice.

“I thought you might say that. You wanna get on my lap?” Whirl’s voice was rough and inviting and unnervingly confident. Rung’s helm darted back up to see him rubbing one of his claws up and down his thigh in an extremely suggestive manner.

“I- what?” he managed, turning his helm back to his lap. He crossed one leg over the other and jostled it nervously.

“Don’t be shy Eyebrows,” Whirl teased. “I know what you want to _talk_ about.” Rung exvented in frustration, strained his neck to met Whirl’s optic despite the prickling thrill it sent down his spinal strut, the odd and senseless _longing_.

“No, I suspect you _don-_ ”

“And I know it will be a _much_ more productive talk if we have it while you’re bouncing that cute little aft up and down my spike.” Whirl continued as if the psychiatrist hadn’t spoke, his optic curving into a leer. Rung opened and closed his mouth, but his words turned to strained crackling somewhere between his brain module and his voxcoder. Whirl’s field flushed with amusement. “If you don’t want it that way, I could also bend you over this slab and interface you from behind. I’m not picky.” Rung was losing the battle to keep his servos still. He restarted his vocaliser.

“I- I’m not sure I’m feeling well,” he managed through a piercing static hum, standing abruptly. “I’m sorry, I think I must cancel-” Whirl was on his pedes in a nanoklick, his optic wide and his plating flared and his field suffocatingly close.

Rung had faced off with intimidating patients before. He had assessed prospective Wreckers, war criminals, professional interrogators, unpredictable sadists of all factions. He’d been held hostage and threatened with dismemberment and lost count of the number of model ships smashed by patients in fits of rage. At all these trying times he had done his utmost to remain calm, composed, and open. He had feared for his safety, very occasionally, but he had never showed it in his field or frame. But when Whirl stood, he scrambled back so frantically and instinctively that he nearly tripped over his chair and fell to the floor. He caught himself on the edge of the couch, narrowly avoiding falling on his aft. He clung to the slab, scrambled to pull himself back to his pedes quickly, tried to soothe his whirring spark.

“Alright, couch it is.” Somehow Rung hadn’t noticed Whirl come up behind him until the rotary was pressing against the plating of his back. Whirl pushed him down against the surface of the slab with one claw, used the other to support himself as he leaned down, twisting slightly to compensate for his cockpit. “Come on Eyebrows, I got a cure for what ails you,” he teased. Rung bept in surprise, before he could respond Whirl had bent down his helm and there was a sharp pain in the cabling of his neck. He vented hard, his plating shuddering with a subtle clatter, as a slow heavy heat began to overtake his frame. His legs felt suddenly weak, unable to support him, his arms heavy and dull. A tingling pulse of warm pleasure flooded his sensornet. His panel clicked open and his fans whirred to life. Whirl had apparently pulled his own panel back some time before that, as Rung could feel his primary press against the mouth of his valve. He moaned and arched his back, trying to slide himself around that _wonderful_ spike, but Whirl held him still, forced him to wait.

"Alright Doc, since you're a little slow on the uptake, I'm gonna walk you through this.” He thrust his hips forward, sliding entirely into Rung in a single motion. Rung let out a trill of satisfaction, tendrils grasping at Whirl’s plating, valve squeezing around him. His spike was pressed against the edge of the table, it pulsed hot against his plating. “I like you Eyebrows, and believe you me, I don't like a lot of mechen. But you're a sweet bot, and pretty as Primus, and you've got a _b-e-a-u-tifuly_ hungry little valve on you. So you're gonna _stop_ worrying about ethics and let yourself have some fun for once, okay? I think- _hnk-_ you’d like that wouldn’t you? Unwind after a long hard day with something equally long and hard.” Rung whimpered as Whirl continued to thrust at a patient and steady pace. That sounded… that sounded nice. But- but wasn’t there-

“I... don’t...” he slurred, his glyphs trailing off into a mild drone.

“Why don’t you let me do the talking for this sesh, eh Rung?” The psychiatrist nodded weakly. “That’s a _good_ bot.” Whirl cooed into his audial. Rung trembled at the praise, charge pooling hot at the base of his spinal strut. “You know what your problem is Doc?” Whirl continued, his voice turning soft, his claw trailing slowly up and down the side of Rung’s abdomen. “You worry too much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cute seeing you get all twisted up about silly stuff like whether or not you can ’face a patient, but it’s no good for you.” He began to pick up the pace of his thrusts, Rung let out a needy, shrill whistle. “You’ve been a real swell mecha to me Rung, so let me pay you back with a little advice: you need to _relax_ , to simplify your life. And I’m gonna help you do it.” Rung felt his charge release in overload with a crackling burst, his own transfluid smearing beneath his abdomen. He moaned long and high and tilted his hips in a desperate, silent plea for _more_.

“I’m glad you agree,” Whirl laughed between vents. “Now flex that valve nice and _tight_ around my spike, that’s a good fragtoy.” Rung obeyed, pressing his knees together in an effort to give the mecha on top of him the friction he desired. He was rewarded with a gush of transfluid, and the unexpected rush of a second overload. Whirl was venting raggedly, fans roaring and frame pinging with heat. “As soon as I pull out you’re going to shut your panel,” he said “and you aren’t going to open it until you’ve absorbed all my t-fluid. That’s important. Gotta make sure you’re imprinting right.” Rung nodded weakly. “There we go.” Whirl’s tendrils interlaced and grappled with Rung’s, he ground lazily against his valve a few more times until his ‘deagus began to depressurise. He retracted his tendrils, then pulled out. Rung snapped his panel back in place immediately and was rewarded with a fond nuzzle of Whirl’s helm against his neck. He let out a beep of contentment.

Whirl stepped back, placing his claws under the smaller mecha’s arms to keep him from sliding off of the slab. He huffed softly as he pulled the psychiatrist up, laying him on his side. Rung squirmed into a slightly more comfortable position and offlined his optics. He felt Whirl tracing a talon down the side of his face, turned his helm ever so slightly to kiss it. His valve was not nearly full enough, but it felt deliciously wet and warm with Whirl’s transfluid sealed inside. He chirruped softly.

“Good talk today, Doc.” he heard the rotary chuckle from somewhere above him. “I think we made a _lot_ of progress on your control issues, don’t you?”

**\---**

.Rung knocked back the Chemical Messiah with a grimace. It was the most potent drink Swerve’s served, it tasted foul and it _was not helping_. Rung avoided high grade as a rule, he didn’t like the impairment of intoxication, and getting blitzed within view of his patients was definitely a less than stellar idea, but he was desperate. He slammed the glass onto the surface of the table and rested his helm in his hand, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, his legs crossed and jitterin frenetically. He had avoided, to the best of his abilities, being alone with Whirl since the last… incident. Leaving his office as soon as his last appointment of the cycle was over, loitering in busy and public venues, cancelling his open hours. He thought that if he waited it out, if he tolerated the discomfort of avoiding Whirl...

It was rapidly becoming apparent to Rung that no amount of waiting out was going to kill this urge. He knew with absolute _certainty_ that when he next saw Whirl his willpower was going to dissolve and he was going to melt willingly into whatever position the rotary wanted to frag him in. To fill his aching emptiness and press him down against the berth and bathe him in that heavenly field and tell him he was a good bot and _Primus_ \-- Maybe Whirl was in his hab suite right now. Could Rung just... come over? Would that be _rude_ to just come over? Pits he didn’t _care_ it didn’t _matter_. He _needed_ it.

The sound of his fans roaring to life snapped him out of his train of thought. He slammed his servos down on the table, manually locked his vents. He was painfully aware that he was probably attracting unwanted attention to himself, but he didn’t look up to check who might be staring with what expression. He could feel lubricant dripping down the walls of his valve to pool at the bottom of his panel, warm and liquid, his tendrils squirming in it. At least he wasn’t leaking.

Well, wasn’t leaking _yet_.

The odd symptoms he had been noticing, which seemed to occur during any period when he had not interfaced with Whirl in the last cycle, were getting worse. Going through five cycles without Whirl had been uncomfortable enough, going through almost a _dozen_ was unbearable. Around the ninth cycle the aching pain in his joints had receded, the itchy tingling all over his frame had almost completely gone, but the abatement of these symptoms was more than made up for by a surge in almost overwhelming _need_ for interface. Rung had certainly had periods where he ran high charge before, but this was unprecedented. For the duration of the war he had had very little consistent contact with anyone besides patients, and as such very few partners. Without regular use his interfacing systems had gone somewhat dormant. Perhaps interfacing with Whirl had led to a sort of sudden, _painful_ reboot. His circuitry burned, his spike was constantly pressing against his panel, his valve rushed to lubricate itself at the slightest provocation.

Self servicing didn’t help. Firstly, it was a far more laborious task than usual. It took more time, more intense stimulation, sensation felt oddly _dulled_. It was probably his distracted mind. With just himself in his room, and since he resisted all Whirl related fantasies with extreme prejudice, there was not much to do but let his processor wander. Secondly, even when he _was_ able to coax himself to overload it only left him aching for more, for harder, stronger stimulation. He wondered, or perhaps the high grade wondered for him, if perhaps it would help to be with a partner. Someone to keep him focused, in the moment, someone who would help him get the fulfillment he so craved. _There must be an easier way to solve this_. Something in his mind bit back that the easiest solution to this started with ‘W’ and ended with ‘hirl’ and had given him his hab suite number and told him to come over if he needed ‘anything’ and Primus he needed something _badly_. He vented as he felt his valve clench unsatisfyingly around nothing.

Waiting hadn’t helped, self servicing hadn’t helped, high grade was, if anything, making the problem even _worse_... Rung had never considered himself the kind of mecha who went for one night stands, but he would try _anything_ if it could help him get over this awful craving without risking further dependency on Whirl. When his fans began whirring to life again, he did not bother trying to lock them. He was out of options, it would be no use overheating out of modesty. He might as well get up, try to cruise the bar for someone who was relatively sober and looking for a casual interfacing partner. Even if the persistent need remained, he could at least get an overload out of it.

**\---**

The other mecha grunted as he came a third time. He let out a shallow vent as charge crackled over his frame, optics shuttering, and moved to pull out. Rung whined miserably, legs wrapped tight around his partner’s hips, pulling the spike back into his valve and displacing a gush of transfluid onto the berth. The other mecha smiled, cocked his helm and gently stroked the side of Rung’s face with his hand.

“Pits, you’re _insatiable_ ,” he whispered, awed. Rung bit down a comment that he was perfectly satiable, _thank you very much_ , so long as his partner knew _anything_ about- the mecha reached down to grasp his cord, stroking it, and Rung screamed against his grit teeth. Every circuit in his body was _burning_ with arousal, his fluid systems working overtime to produce lubricant and pressurise his spike, his plating pinging with heat, his painting chaffed to the point of flaking. But nothing the other mecha was doing was _right_. The pressure was too soft and too predictable, his cord was sizeable but barely registered inside Rung’s valve. It was as if his sensory array had just refused to send anything but the mildest feedback. Everything was teasing and faint. Nothing was hard, nothing was rough. Nothing was _enough_. This was as bad as self servicing. No, no it was _worse_.

“How many times have you overloaded?” The other mecha whispered into his audial. _None_ you incompetent, you...! Rung vented shakily, fists clenching and unclenching. It wasn’t this mecha’s fault, there was no reason to get mad at him. He had been an attentive lover, had done everything Rung requested of him. He was just… wrong.

“Bite my neck again,” he requested, hoarsely, by way of distraction. The mecha dug his denta into Rung’s cabling. “ _Harder_ ,” he groaned, curling against the other mecha, trying to pull him closer. He bit until energon began to ooze from his lines. That sensation, at least, was a little clearer. But it brought none of the pleasure he needed, did nothing but distract from the already muddled and muted feedback relayed by the rest of his frame. The other mecha thrust into his valve at a punishing pace, and his ceiling node barely fizzled in response. His fans were roaring to disperse a heat that did nothing but build.

Rung bit down on his fingers and screamed in frustration.

**\---**

Rung awoke in an unfamiliar habsuite with a miserable hangover colored by cloying, insatiable arousal. His first impulse was to roll over and beg the mecha next to him to bury his cord in his valve, but he resisted, knowing quite well that he’d get no relief from it. There was only one way to get what he needed. Last night had proven that for a fact. He untangled himself from the other mecha, still in recharge, and slipped off of the berth and out of the habsuite quietly. A trip to the washracks removed the evidence of the last cycle, and from there he moved directly to his office. He realised with a queasy roiling of his tank that his systems had begun to hum with arousal automatically in response to the location of his practice. He manually locked his vents and pointedly ignored the feeling of his tendrils unfolding against his panel. He still had several appointments before Whirl was scheduled to arrive, and he couldn’t let something as unprofessional as frustrated arousal disturb his work. Remaining seated in his chair this cycle seemed like a good idea.

As the cycle went on, Rung’s decision to remain at his desk was only substantiated. The craving for interface had only worsened since the previous cycle, and his systems were burning through fuel at an extraordinary rate to keep up with lubricant production and taxed fans. When another mecha came into the office he had to fairly slam his vents shut, if only for propriety’s sake. Of course, when he did that his frame would slowly overheat, sending him warnings and seemingly meaningless data until he was alone and free to cool down again. His fuel levels dropped steadily, and the only energon he had nearby was more flavor than nutrition. He felt weak, dizzy, unsure if he could even stand. He had very little doubt that his distractibility had been noticed by his clients, but there was nothing he could do but try to power through it until… until Whirl came to fix this. Until Whirl came to fix _him_.

But that wasn’t until the end of the workcycle, so he grit his denta and stayed the course.


	4. Bargain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whirl uncovers Rung's deception, Rung does whatever it takes to make up for it.

Rung heard a knock at his door and reluctantly sealed his vents, his internal temperature spiking almost instantaneously in response. He fumbled at the button which open the door, his optics trained on the datapad he had been using to record haphazard and disconnected notes.

“Hey Doc, long time no see.”

Rung’s cooling fans opened with an abrupt roar, his helm darted up from the glyphs he had been desperately trying to parse.

“Whirl,” he croaked, the name spoken as a query and a demand and an epithet all in one. He stood, his legs shaking, and realised his panel had already slid aside. He emitted a high, needy whine, it transfigured halfway through into a slurred “ _please_.” Whirl’s optic cycled wide, and the pleased brush of his field against Rung’s was ecstasy.

“Ooo, look at what a _mess_ you are,” the rotary chucked, looking down at Rung’s lubricant slicked thighs, his partially unsheathed ‘deagus. He didn’t even bother walking over to the slab, sitting down right on the edge of one of the storage cubes resting against the wall. “Good fragtoy,” he purred, trailing his claw up and down his thigh, his panel slipping back and his spike unsheathing. ”Get over here, now.”

Rung didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled out from behind his desk and half staggered half crawled over to the other mecha, optics fixated on his array the whole time. His valve clenched fruitlessly at nothing as oral lubricant dribbled down his chin. Once he arrived at the other side of the room he pulled himself back to his pedes by clinging desperately to Whirl’s plating, fans screaming. The rotary bent his helm to nuzzle the fuel cable at his neck. The contact was electrifying: Rung felt only a twinge of pain before he found his circuits awash in a familiar tingling rush. Whirl turned him around easily, bent him over beneath his cockpit. He was quickly lowered onto the other mecha’s spike, and an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction heated his frame from his valve outwards. Whirl leaned forward, the end of his cockpit and the barrels of his guns pressing against the psychiatrist’s lower back.

“I’m the only one who can do this for you, right Rung? Give you what you _need_?” he whispered against his audial, receiving a weak moan in response as the other mecha ground around his spike, pedes scraping at the floor. “Yeah. I’m the one you _need_. No one else would do, right?” Rung’s response was to whine and curl his tendrils desperately around the base of the rotary’s ‘deagus. “I asked you a question, Doc.” Rung winced as the admonishment in the tone. Whirl wasn’t pleased, that was _no good_ , no good _at all_.

“N no, he didn’t.” Rung managed to spit out, only for the field against his to snap with sudden vexation.

“ _He_?” Rung reset his voxcoder in an attempt to answer, but only static came out. The question didn’t make sense. Whirl was mad and it was bad, it was wrong, it _hurt_. He reached over his shoulder in search of the barrels of his guns, hoping that might appease his partner.

It did not.

The rotary clasped his claws around Rung's wrists, hoisting his arms so that Rung was pulled up off of his spike, disentangling their tendrils by retracting his own close to his valve. Rung squirmed, whimpered, but could do nothing to free himself, to resume their interfacing. The snout of Whirl's cockpit pressed against the small of his back and his valve felt cold and wrong and empty.

"Whirl, _please_."

"Did I say you could 'face someone else, Doc?" Whirl’s voice was dangerous.

"This isn't..." Rung struggled against the burning need, the sense of shame eating away at his processor. Excuses flitted through his head: he didn't know, it was just once, he knows better now, _please_. Finally he bowed his head, shuttered his optics. "No..."

"No, I didn't, did I,” the rotary said quietly, his field cooling. Rung whimpered, cleaning fluid pooling in his optics behind his scopes. Whirl’s disapproval, the denial of his touch, was agonising. Whirl exvented, engine rumbling fiercely. "Ok Doc, maybe I wasn’t clear about this, but you’re _mine_. I don’t want you pulling your panel back for some other mecha, I don’t want you pressurizing for them or riding their spike or nothing. You’re _my_ fragtoy. Just- just _thinking_ about some ‘bot getting to enjoy the cute little noises you make when you overload-”

“He didn’t!” Rung sobbed. Whirl’s engine quieted, the barrels of his guns cooling slightly.

“What?”

“I didn’t- I _couldn’t_ overload. N- no matter what he did.” He was desperate, clinging to anything he could say that might lessen Whirl’s displeasure with him. Why had he denied himself for an orn, why had he offered what was Whirl’s to someone else, why had he _done that_? “Please, Whirl, I’m so sorry.” Whirl responded to his pleas with a dry chuckle.

"Wow, those little buggers are really doing a number on your circuits Doc. I guess I forgot how fast they work." His words were meaningless to Rung, all he knew was that the grip on his wrists had not relented at all.

“Forgive me,” he pleaded, voice crackling. “I’ll do _anything_.”

“Anything?” Whirl asked, his field warming minutely. Rung whined, spread his legs in an effort to lower himself onto Whirl's cord, only succeeded in putting further strain on his wrists. He reset his vocaliser, choked on oral lubricant.

" _Please_."

"Carry a clutch for me" Rung’s optics came back online, his vision a flurry of pixels. Everything hurt, everything _ached_ for Whirl. It was impossible to make sense of what the rotary was asking him with his sensornet in such twisting pain.

"C clutch?" he managed to ask through crackling static. Whatever Whirl was asking of him, he would do it, _gladly_. But he could hardly fulfill his duties if he didn’t know what they were.

"You know, eggs? If you let me lay my clutch in you, if you're a good carrier, I-”

“Yes!” Rung shouted, nodding his helm frantically. He could do that, he could carry, he would be good. Arousal spiked through Whirl’s field, Rung moaned plaintively in response. “Please _please_ , yes, I’ll do it.”

“Primus Doc.” Whirl’s voice was quiet and full of awe. “You sure?”

“Yes, oh _yes_ , please yes _please_ l- let me- !” his words were cut off by a keen of pleasure as Whirl finally, _finally_ , released his grip on his wrists, allowing Rung to sink down on his spike. He ground greedily against him, their pelvic plating scraping hard enough to transfer paint. He grasped Whirl’s thighs with his hands to anchor himself, venting hard, back bent. Whirl’s motor growled, deep and harsh and sending vibrations through the whole of his frame. It was _ecstasy_.

“Oh Doc, Doc I don’t think you know what that _does_ to me.” Whirl growled, wrapping his claws around Rung’s waist and pulling their frames closer together. “You know how charged up that idea gets me? You, stuffed full of _my_ eggs? Pits you’ll look _gorgeous_. All f full and heavy and glowing with sparklings, frag, your field humming _oh_.” He braced himself against the wall with one claw, jerked his hips up. His tendrils were thrashing, reaching up to grasp at Rung’s, tight and tugging.

“I’ll be the best forge _ever_ ,” the rotary growled. “You won’t want for fuel or transfluid or _anything_ , I promise.” Rung couldn’t quite comprehend what Whirl was saying, but he knew that Whirl approved. He knew Whirl was pleased with him and excited by him and he would do _anything_ to keep his mate in such a generous mood. If that meant carrying for the rotary, then there was nothing in this world he wanted more.

“ _Yes_ ,” he invented sharply. “Please, spark me, fill me, _breed_ me. I want- I _need_ to be full with your eggs Whirl. I’ll be good, I’ll show you I can be good. Please let me carry your clutch, _please_. There’s _nothing_ I need more- more than that,” he pleaded. Whirl put his claws under his arms, lifted him clean off his spike- oh what had he done wrong _now_? “No no no no no _please,_ I’m sorry, please!” he howled, cleaning fluid leaking from his scopes, running down his cheeks. He couldn’t go back to that pain, that terrible aching, that _agony_ of being separated.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Whirl rushed to reassure him, quickly sinking him back down on his primary. Rung moaned helplessly, his frame trembling, as Whirl nuzzled his neck with his helm. The smaller mecha sobbed, babbled apologies. “Shh it’s alright Doc, I- uh- I’m just having a bit of trouble getting my ovipositor out.” Whirl muttered, a flicker of embarrassment going through his field. “It’s been a while, the thing’s a little shy. I’m gonna stop ‘facing you for a bit, just a klick, but then I’ll go right back, okay? I’m not mad at you. Actually, you could probably help me coax it out. Use that pretty little mouth. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Rung nodded shakily, this time when Whirl pulled him off of his spike and lowered him to the ground he restrained himself to a plaintive whimper. Whirl shifted position on the storage cube, leaning back on his elbows and spreading his legs wide to expose his interfacing equipment. Rung hurried to turn around, crawling between Whirl’s legs and bowing to mouth against his valve. His lips pressed against his squirming tendrils, his tongue slid across the entrance. He could taste his own lubricant, faintly, it had dripped down Whirl’s ‘deagus and been smeared around the entrance to his valve by his tendrils. Mostly though Whirl tasted of his favorite brand of high grade, copper, something unplaceable but appetizing.

“Ah, _frag_ that’s good,” Whirl groaned, engine rumbling in approval. “Primus in the _Pit_ you’d think my lube was premium grade solar the way you’re, you’re-” Rung darted his glossa into the valve, sucking at the tendrils that invaded his mouth. Whirl vented hard, his whole frame squirming. “Keep doing _that_ , eyebrows, and I’ll give you all the venom you _want_ ,” he growled. Rung couldn’t keep track of what the rotary was saying, but he could tell his performance had been judged as satisfactory. He responded to the approval by humming deliberately to produce vibrations and tilting his helm to probe his tongue deeper. The rotary’s primary pressed against the lense of his scopes, smearing his vision with lubricant. He felt something hard with the edge of his tongue, a form composed of firm plating among the soft and malleable mesh. He flicked his tongue at it curiously and it pressed forward, gradually at first and then faster as he progressed. A claw around the back of his helm yanked him back unexpectedly, he vented and shuttered his optics.

“Okay, dinner’s over, gotta save some of my transfluid for the little ones.” Whirl explained, sounding quite pleased with himself. The psychiatrist backed away and sat on his folded legs. He could feel the lubricant smeared across his face cooling, wiped some away from his left lense to clear his vision. As Whirl’s ovipositor emerged slowly from the entrance of his valve, extending along the underside of Whirl’s spike and coaxed encouragingly by a claw, Rung couldn’t help but stare. He had seen illustrations of every part of the cybertronian frame in medical books, but he’d never given thought to being either a forge or carrier before this, so he’d never quite had a reason to see that particular appendage in real life. It quite dark, tapered like a spike but longer and thinner.

“Aw, is this your first time?” Whirl crooned sickly sweet. Rung looked away self consciously, felt his fans stutter with embarrassment. The rotary must have noticed him gaping. “Don’t be nervous Doc, you’re gonna _love_ this. Getting to have both my ‘deagus and my ovi in your wet little valve, gestation tank unfolding as I fill you up with my eggs, it’s gonna feel _real_ nice.” Rung felt a fresh flush of lubricant seep from the walls of his valve, parted his lips to speak. Only nervous clicking came from his mouth, and before he could find his voice again Whirl was back to giving orders.“Turn around, hands and knees, spread your legs nice and wide.”

Rung’s frame was shaking with a heady mix of excitement and nerves, but he moved obediently into position. Whirl joined him on the floor, his own knees supporting him as he arranged his claws to grip his hips, nudged his frame into position. The ovipositor seemed to be a bit difficult to maneuver, took several tries to hone in on the entrance of Rung’s valve, but when it did it slid in smoothly and effortlessly. Rung moaned softly, his sensornet sparkling with sensation. It was different than a cord, smoother and with significantly less give. Rung felt the tip of Whirl’s spike against the tendrils at the back of his valve, trying to gain entrance alongside the ovipositor. Eager to be useful, he shifted his weight to balance on one arm and reached back to spread his valve.

“Good Doc,” Whirl purred, and Rung couldn’t say if it was the praise or the sensation of Whirl’s cord stretching him that had him keening with pleasure. He felt the tip of Whirl’s ovipositor butting up against the diaphragm at the top of his valve. Whirl made a soft humming noise as if trying to disentangle a lose wire, shifting his position and leaning forward to press with more force against the entrance of his gestation tank. After a klick of this Rung felt his diaphragm begin to spiral open, allowing the tip of Whirl’s ovipositor inside. Whirl continued to nudge forward, stretching the iris of his diaphragm open. The combined girth of the ovipositor and spike was sending Rung’s sensory circuits into overdrive, his mesh strained and his nodes buzzing with charge. Rung yelped as Whirl adjusted his position to gain more leverage and and _thrust_ to the hilt. His graspers, the barbs that folded out of the bottom of his ovipositor, tugged at the delicate mesh by the mouth of Rung’s valve, securing them together. Rung could barely hear his own moaning over his fans kicking into high gear.

“You _love_ this Doc.” Whirl growled into his audial, grinding his hips against Rung’s, their tendrils entwining. Rung whimpered in response, barely able to keep his arms in position, his sensoret pulsing with white hot bliss. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m gonna spark you up, spark you with _my_ eggs, _my_ clutch. You’re _mine_ , get that Doc? You belong to me, no one gets a piece of this valve except Whirl. Say it, say you belong to me.”

“I- I belong to y you,” Rung moaned, his voice buzzing static and trailing off into a whistle.

“Are you gonna be pulling back your panel for anyone else?” Whirl asked. Rung shook his head violently.

“ _No_ , I... I’m sorry, no,” he croaked.

“Are you gonna take good care of my eggs?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Good,” Whirl muttered, and then more softly, “good ‘bot, Rung.” He ground his ovipositor inside his valve, frame tensing. “Hey, bow down a bit maybe?” Rung’s arms gave way beneath him, he invented sharply. He dug his fingers into the seams of the floor, whining and shuffling his knees even further apart. Whirl let out a satisfied groan that sent jolts of charge up his spinal strut, pressing his weight down on the smaller mecha. “That’s the ticket.” His ovipositor began to vibrate slightly, at first uniformly and then in rippling pulses up and down the length of the shaft. Rung clenched his already strained mesh around Whirl, keened desperately in overload. He was running so hot that his transfluid fairly sizzled when it spurted across his abdomen. The charge that danced in the mesh of his valve rebounded against the smooth plating of the ovipositor, prolonging overload almost painfully. He felt secondary systems flickering and failing, heard fuel roaring in his lines.

When he came down from his haze, still twitching from aftershocks, he could feel that something was different. His gestation tank wasn’t nearly as sensitive as his valve, but he could feel that it had been unfolding, expanding with a heavy burning weight. He could feel his plating shifting to accommodate the eggs. The vibration of Whirl’s ovipositor began dying down but the pressure kept building and _building_. Twinges of pain shot through his sensornet as the mesh lining of his tank was strained, and he whimpered.

"Sorry our first clutch’s gotta be this big Doc,” Whirl said, stroking his back gently with a claw and sounding genuinely apologetic. _First_? First of... what was…? He bit his lip. “I- uh- haven't gotten to do this in a while," the rotary continued. “But that’s okay, because you _love_ carrying, yes you do. You _like_ feeling nice and full with eggs. It’s a good feeling, nice and warm with all those little sparks in you. You do like taking care of mechen, don’t you Doc? Well, you’re gonna take good care of this clutch.” Rung nodded weakly, his helm scraping against the floor. Yes, that did sound good. More than that, it sounded _wonderful_ , sounded so fantastic that he could hardly believe that Whirl was gracing him with such an honor. Whirl grunted, speeding up the movements of his hips, short as they were due to their tie. Rung could feel his spike twitching against his ceiling node, tried to grind back in encouragement. With a burst of static Whirl overloaded, some of his transfluid flooding into his gestation tank but the majority spilling out into his valve. After a breem of heavy venting and recovering from the aftershocks, his ‘deagus began to depressurise, to retreat back out of Rung’s valve and to sheathe itself into his frame. With his cord removed the pressure keeping Whirl’s barbs buried in the mesh of Rung’s valve also faded. Whirl pulled out of him entirely, his ovipositor still thrumming slightly.

“Close your panels.” Rung obeyed, remaining in position as Whirl leaned back against the storage cube and carefully nudged his ovipositor back inside his valve. “Come here.” Rung pushed himself off of his face, looking back to Whirl. He turned, crawling towards the rotary, keeping his optics respectfully averted. His spark was whirring nervously, he fretted that he had not earned Whirl’s forgiveness, but the larger mecha reached forwards and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him onto his lap against his frame. He bowed his helm to nuzzle Rung’s crest. “Good Doc, very _very_ good Rung,” he cooed, and Rung felt his spark leap, he eagerly pressed into Whirl’s touch.

“Thank you,” he said shyly, moving a servo curiously to his abdomen. There was only the slightest shift in the position of his plating, thankfully unlikely to be noticed, but feeling it made his sensornet tingle in satisfaction.

"Now, You gotta stay fueled up, alright Eyebrows? Good stuff only, no fancy high grade, got too many fiddly little additives. If you need extra rations just tell me, I’ll get them for you. You’re probably gonna need some of that mineral rich junk Ratchet has, I’ll see if I can swipe some. And you’re gonna take it easy, no running around or getting involved in battles. Nothing stressful, okay?" Rung quirked a smile, EM Field flooding with warmth and appreciation. What a considerate forge he had.

“Alright,” he replied. Whirl was quiet for a while, staring down at him intently. He moved a claw to the plating above Rung’s gestation tank, and the smaller mecha wrapped his fingers around a talon, holding it gently in place.

“Hey, Doc,” Whirl resent his vocaliser before continuing. “Now that you’re carrying, you’re gonna need a regular supply of transfluid, help you get enough nutrients. And having to run across the ship to my berth every cycle seems like a real chore,” he added. “You know what? You should probably move in with me.” Rung hummed softly in response, furrowed his optical ridges and shook his helm ever so slightly against Whirl’s plating.

“Mmm, my hab suite… closer to my office though.”

“Yeah, but your suite is probably _tiny_. Plus, I got all this extra space thanks to Sparky eating my roomie.” Rung couldn’t possibly come up with an argument against such a logical and comprehensive explanation. He just nodded. “This way, I’ll be able to ‘face you whenever you need it.” _That_ certainly sounded good to the psychiatrist. He pressed a kiss against the rotary’s canopy. Moving in together… yes, that sounded nice. He wanted that. “We’ll have an actual berth, maybe I’ll get a nice blanket to keep you comfy.” Whirl scythed his free claw nervously. “...Well, those are kind expensive.”

“I can pay for a blanket,” Rung offered “It’s the least I can do.”

“Good, good ‘bot.” Whirl clicked in approval, nuzzling Rung’s crest “We can move you in tonight.”

“Mhn, okay.”

“Uh, and another thing,” Whirl continued after a pause. “You’re probably going to want to take a break from therapising for a bit.” Rung responded to this with a small beep of distress, though his resistance was not enough to disturb the hazy pleasure emanating from his field.

“I don’t…” he began, trailing off and shuttering his optics. The rest of his sentence eluded him, ungraspable. He just wanted to bask in the afterglow of his overload, the weight of the new eggs inside of him, the presence of his mate. His… mate? That sounded… not quite correct but...

“Shush Doc, it’s just a little vacation,” Whirl purred, sounding infinitely confident and persuasive and unquestionably correct. “You promised you’d be a good carrier, didn’t you? Good carriers _rest,_ especially while their gestation protocols are booting up.” Rung’s spark clenched painfully in his thorax. Of course. He wanted to be good, he _needed_ to be good, and distractions would only hamper him.

“Well… I could… I could refer them to someone else.”

“There we go! That’s my good Rung.”

“A vacation… is a good idea,” Rung exvented slowly against the side of his cockpit, offlined his optics “I’ve been feeling… confused? Lately?”

“Ah, don’t worry about that,” Whirl chuckled, “That just means the venom’s working.”

“The what?” Rung onlined his optics, turned his helm ever so slightly to face Whirl. Whirl stared back with that unreadably steady optic, his field still relaxed. He lifted his claw, gently tilting Rung’s helm from side to side, engine rumbling.

“You know, once you’re all set up in my suite I might let you finish eating out my valve.” Rung’s cooling fans, which had been cycling down for the past few breems, promptly roared back to life. He felt a flush of embarrassment, which must have shown in his field or his features because Whirl began to radiate reassurance, and Primus if that field didn’t feel so very soothing and warm and _right_. He felt strutless in Whirl’s arms, utterly content.

“How about we focus on that tonight, and I tell you about the venom stuff _next_ orn?” Rung smiled softly. Well, that was one less thing weighing on his mind.

 


	5. Small Print

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung makes arrangements, Whirl gives him an explanation for his behavior.

Moving into Whirl’s hab suite was relatively simple. Rung did not have many possessions of his own, and Whirl could easily carry the crate of what he did have for the duration of the trip over to his suite. Whirl seemed very distracted on the way there, glancing around and taking odd pathways, muttering something about cameras by way of explanation when Rung asked why they couldn’t just use the main halls. It seemed an odd thing to worry about, the kind of thing Red Alert, not Whirl, would say. Eventually they arrived, Rung unpacking his ships and datapads on the empty side of the room. He started climbing onto the berth, but Whirl whistled for his attention.

“You’re going to be recharging with me,” he explained, petting his own slab, where he was laying on his back. Oh, that made sense. Rung crossed the room and Whirl helped him up, pulling the smaller bot close to his frame. The psychiatrist hummed, wrapping his arms around the rotary. As he shifted he felt the transfluid in his valve sloshing, a small amount leaking out of the seams of his interfacing panel. He could feel several eggs, certainly more than two, shifting in the gel coating his gestation tank. The mesh did not feel nearly so strained now, just pleasantly stretched, and still quite warm. He pulled himself up Whirl’s body, kissed the cables of his neck and rubbed his hands against the underside of his cockpit. The rotary's cooling fans whirred to life, to his immense satisfaction.

“Whirl, may I…” he wasn’t sure how to phrase his request, licked his lips nervously.

“First you gotta make those arrangements for your little vacation, alright Eyebrows? Then my valve is _all_ yours.” Rung whined softly, but turned over on his back obediently, taking a datapad out of one of his many compartments. It was short work to compose a letter to Ultra Magnus explaining that he was going to need a break for… Whirl suggested ‘medical reasons’ and that seemed accurate enough. He filled out and attached the necessary paperwork as mandated by the code, including his referrals. He did not have that many regular patients, in any case, most of his work was in assessment and recommendations for placement. And he was able to give several cycles notice, seeing as he did not have any session scheduled until later in the orn. Whirl asked to read over his messages. Rung felt a bit uneasy about that, some of the information was confidential. Whirl assured him that he wasn’t going to blackmail anyone, he just wanted to make sure that Rung sounded ‘normal,’ whatever that meant. When Whirl was satisfied of this, Rung sent the messages to Magnus and his patients.

“There,” he murmured, returning the datapad to his compartment, then turning over to press a kiss to Whirl’s neck. The soft whirring of his cooling fans started up again, he reset his voxcoder. “Now, m may I-” his voice trailed off into static. It didn’t make sense for him to be so nervous about this, he was hardly a novice when it came to interfacing, but he’d never- never craved it so much, so _shamelessly_. He wasn’t even asking the rotary to do something to _him_ , only pleading for the privilege of servicing Whirl. Still, the words stuck in his voxcoder. They had never been so potent, so capable of _undoing_ him.

“You can suck my spike too, if you want,” Whirl offered, making an illustrative gesture. “Just make sure you swallow all my transfluid, that’s a good fragtoy, and lick up anything that spills.” Well, at least he could count on the rotary to be frank when he was at a loss for words.

“Thank you,” he muttered ardently against Whirl’s neck, then bent down to kiss the top of his canopy. “Thank you,” he repeated, moving down to kiss the side of his cockpit. “Thank you,” he continued, alternating the expressions of gratitude with kisses as he moved down Whirl’s frame. The rotary’s engines rumbled in pleasure. When he reached his spike, depressurized and mostly sheathed, he took the uncovered tip entirely in his mouth, pressed his lips to the plating around it and sucked. The lubricant, gel and transfluid still smeared over his interfacing array made a lewd slurping noise.

“ _Primus_ Rung, you really do know _exactly_ what to do with that mouth,” Whirl groaned in satisfaction, engine revving. Rung hummed appreciatively as he felt the cord begin to pressurise with energon again, pressing against his tongue and slipping deeper into his mouth as it emerged. “Primus in the _Pit_.” His tendrils began to move languidly, grasping at Rung’s chin and smearing lubricant around the underside of his jaw. When Whirl’s spike was halfway out he drew his mouth back up, releasing it with one last lick to the tip before bowing his helm to the entrance of Whirl’s valve. He could still taste his own lubricant, much more of it this time, but Whirl’s taste was even more heady than it had seemed a half joor ago. “Fragging... _slag_ Rung-” Whirl’s claw reached down to cradle the back of his helm, pushing him harder against his interfacing array, and Rung dipped his tongue into the entrance of his valve. He reached one of his hands beneath himself, between his own legs, and rubbed at the section of his interface cover which his ‘deagus was currently pressed against. A few tendrils tried to wriggle between his lips, he coaxed them inside his intake with his glossa, then resumed flicking it into the entrance of his valve. “Doctor, doctor, _doctor_ ,” Whirl growled. “Primus, where have you _been_ all my life?” Rung drew back, strings of lubricant dripping down his chin. His voxcoder stuttered as he tried to follow the change of topic.

“I th- think, f for a while Kimia, before that... I was stationed-”

“Prima, I didn’t actually- it’s just something you _say_ Rung.” The smaller bot gave the rotary a puzzled look, tilted his helm to the side nervously. Maybe that question hadn’t been directed at him? “Listen, Doc-- the past, the future, don’t worry about it. All you need to worry about from now on is being a good little fragtoy, alright? You think you can manage that?” The other mecha nodded his helm, at first uncertainly and then with conviction. “Alright, good ‘bot.” Whirl pulled his helm forward with one claw, pointed towards his interface array with the talon of the other. “Back to work.”

**\---**

Rung had always savored simplicity. With the functionists, the war, his career, with everything the Lost Light and it’s crew had endured, simplicity had been difficult to find. Everything was complex, variable. It had felt inescapable. But now it was becoming clear to Rung that it didn’t have to be like that. All he had to worry about at the moment was fueling and resting and being a good fragtoy. (Rung hadn’t been sure about that last part for a while. That glyph, “fragtoy,” it had felt somehow _bad_. But Whirl had been _so kind_ and asked _so little_ of him, that in the end he was glad to assume the position.) Sometimes Whirl had other requests for him: to recall the pin for his credit account, to sign his glyph to a datapad, to install a new program in his system. It amused him that his hands knew how to type the numbers, form the characters, better than his processor did. He was grateful that Whirl did not ask him to read the datapads he signed, figure out how many credits he had in his account, determine the purpose of the programs he ran. The rotary would take care of that, like he took care of everything. He felt, with a mild pang of guilt that he could not even place, that he would be so terribly sad when his vacation was over.

**\---**

Rung felt his valve clench in anticipation as soon as he heard the soft whoosh of the habsuite door opening. He had been self servicing dutifully in the rotary’s absence, but nothing could replace interfacing with his mate. He turned his helm towards the entranceway, three fingers pumping in and out of his valve while he stroked his antennae with the other hand. He arched his back and spread his legs, issuing a welcoming trill. He knew the larger bot very much liked him on display, and he planned to give as enticing a show as possible. Whirl’s cooling fans roared online, his optic a pinpoint of fascination. Rung trailed his servo from his antennae to his lips, taking full advantage of Whirl’s oral fixation by dipping two fingers into his intake and then trailing them down his frame and between his legs. He moaned, optics half shuttered, as he spread his valve.

“Hey Doc,” Whirl laughed high and reedy, struggling to collect himself enough to close the suite door with shaking claws.”H happy to see me?”

“Oooh _yes_...” Rung moaned more than said, licking his lips obscenely slow. Whirls’ fans stuttered into high gear and in the reset of an optic he was on top of the smaller bot, claws running roughshod over his frame. Rung melted pliantly into every touch, mewling his name-- Whirl did so love to hear his name-- as the rotary pulled his hands away from his valve, grasped him by the waist as he scrambled to maneuver his bulky frame onto its back. As soon as Whirl was settled, laying back with his cockpit jutting upwards, legs spread, Rung sunk effortlessly onto his spike, whimpering with genuine pleasure. He leaned forwards and began kissing the mouths of Whirl’s guns, running his hands over the barrels and the sensitive underside of his cockpit.

“ _Frag_ , Rung who gave you the right to be so- so slagging _good_ at this.” Rung purred at the praise, licking along one barrel, then the other, of Whirl’s machine guns. His hands followed his glossa up and down the shafts, squeezing the firm metal. The bitter taste of gun oil was fainter than usual this time, Rung made a note to ask Whirl if he wanted any maintenance done for him. “I was gonna ask if you’d been a good fragtoy for me but- _hng-_ I think the answer to that-- you are so fragging _wet_ \-- is pretty apparent. Hook us up.” Rung’s hand immediately darted to Whirl’s hardline interface panel, his own snapping open on command. He plugged into his mate first, then retrieved Whirl’s own connector, stroking the cord as he manouvered it into his port. Rung exvented in pleasure as the connection stabilised, giving Whirl permission to access every system he wished to. Rung loved hardline, it had always been his preferred method of interfacing before... well, _before_. He knew better to take the initiative on it, Whirl had gotten upset a few times when he had suggested it first. He felt Whirl’s presence in his systems like his EM field made manifest, crooned happily as he accessed data both sensory and statistical. He relished in the feelings Whirl projected over their connection. Pleasure and pride and _satisfaction_.

“Ah- almost forgot,” Whirl hummed. “Lean down and present your neck.” Rung whimpered at the prospect, it would require him to remove that _wonderful_ spike from his valve, but direct orders always took precedence. He pulled away, though his tendrils attempted valiantly to keep them tied, moving to the side of Whirl’s cockpit and leaning his head back. The rotary leaned up, nudging him to gain access to the side of his neck, and there was a small twinge of discomfort followed by an immediate flood of heat and sensation and _need_. “Alright, back at it.” Rung did not need to be told twice, he happily withdrew and returned to his position and _oh_ , oh it felt even _better_ now, his nodes lighting up at the slightest brush or pressure. He keened, optics shuttering, and resumed his ministrations towards the gun barrels. Whirl whistled in satisfaction, laying back down and basking in the attention as Rung rode his spike. He chuckled slightly.

“It’s funny, Eyebrows. I could feel it-- through the connection-- you really don’t know, do you?” Rung registered his words faintly, but could tell (tangled as their systems were) that the rotary was not actually asking for an answer, so he kept clicking softly as he moved his hips. “Hey,” Whirl continued, a spark of mischief in his voice. “I think- _hng-_ I think I told you, about an orn ago, that I’d tell you all about the whole, uh, venom deal, right?” Rung nodded, venting raggedly. “Well. You know those little nanite things we’ve all got? Those ones that clean impurities out of our fuel lines and eat up little rust flakes? Well, some mechen have ones with-- _Primus keep that up_ \-- other uses.” The rotary paused. “I’m sure this is boring you Doc. Didn’t you go to med school? Well, be sure to stop me if I’m getting it wrong.” Rung moaned, shook his head. Whirl, wrong? No, that didn’t make sense. Whirl was _always_ right. So wonderfully, fantastically _right_.

“You maybe learned about how some of us rotaries have venom. It’s a built in perk, like the sonar, just one of the nice things about being forged as a whirligig. I used to- ah _pits-_ have nice fangs to deliver it with but _unfortunately_ the hack who took off my face got rid of those too. Didn’t take away my ability to make it, just to do anything _useful_ with- with- _frag_ , I’m gonna overload, hold on.” Whirl grasped Rung’s hips firmly, guided him into three deep thrusts and then came with a staticy moan. The smaller bot clenched down on the cord, biting his lip as transfluid flooded his valve, hot and liquid and almost more satisfying than Whirl’s spike itself.

Rung whined through a haze of static, his frame longing to match the flood of sensory data with his own overload, but just as it had done all cycle his charge disperse impotently at the last possible moment. “And- and that was maybe for the best, there are a few of my Wrecker’s buddies that I doubt I could have resisted using some of it on.” Whirl chuckled. Rung opened his mouth to ask if he should close his panel, but Whirl continued to thrust, clearly past caring whether or not Rung had his transfluid sealed inside of him after every overload.

“It took me until I got reformatted, basically the whole war, to get these back.” Rung reached behind his back and below his hips, stimulating Whirl’s tendrils, slick with lubricant and spilled transfluid, with his fingers. “Fragging- _oh-_ keep doing that,” Whirl grunted in response before continuing. “I could interface _normally_ just fine, but that just gave me a whole backlog of eggs and nowhere to put them. I mean, sure, I could turn on gestation protocols and carry them myself, but _ugh_ it takes so much fragging time and energy and fuel and scrap. Newsparks are so fiddly, they snuff out if you so much as _trip_. You basically can’t do nothing for decaorns. And you know how- scrap, I’m getting off topic.” Rung slipped one finger, then another, in the rotary’s valve, eliciting a pleased chirr.

“Medic explained it to me once,” Whirl continued, voice almost dreamy. “Venom’s made up of this sort of fluid with a whole buncha little nanites and data in it. By putting it right into your main eneron lines, I can get your fuel circulation system to deliver all that scrap right to your brain module for me. And since it's not straight data, since it’s not coming from a port, your firewalls have a pit of a time fighting against it. Now- _uhng-_ Get this, the little nanites, once they get into your processor, they _eat away_ at your sensory circuits. I dunno, that sounds rather unpleasant to me, but apparently it feels amazing, something about the chemicals in the venom. You certainly seem to like it, hm?” Like what? Rung’s confusion was swept aside immediately by an awareness of how warm and pleased and _approving_ Whirl sounded. Did he like that? Of _course_ he did.

“Yes, ah, m mate _yes_.”

“I’m happy to hear that, Doc.” Rung leaned back, slid up the length of Whirl’s spike so he could smile at him over the peak of his cockpit. Whirl’s optic curved fondly back. Rung pushed himself back down, to the hilt, and arched his back forwards with a moan. “Anyway, so the nanites stay alive and kicking for maybe half a joor, but the venoms got extra electric-conductor-what-have-yous that keeps all your brain signals flowing. Problem _is_ , the venom don’t last forever, maybe a cycle, and when it dries up your circuits are all fritzed out. I’ve heard withdrawal is a _real_ drag, achy and tingly and gross. Unpleasant.” Rung whimpered, he could _feel_ the burn of charge coursing through his circuits, begging to be released in overload. He bowed his head and sobbed. “And it does a _number_ on your sensory suite over time, it starts getting basically impossible to process sensory input without the venom. Remember that mecha you ‘faced with? Who couldn’t get you to-” Whirl paused, seemed to consider something. Rung whined plaintively in the silence.

“Please, mate, p please,” he whispered, cleaning fluid pooling behind his scopes, unsure what he was even asking for but desperate for relief only his mate could give him.

“Oh, _frag_. Sorry Rung I _knew_ I was forgetting something.” Whirl muttered, his presence shifting within Rung’s system and changing some small strain of code and--

All of the charge that had been simmering uselessly under his plating joined together in one massive surge that lit every sensory node on his body with ecstasy. Rung howled, voice half static, optics glitching, as overload hit him. His audials were knocked entirely offline, only came back slowly and by pieces, Whirl’s voice and the whirring of their fans distorting into one continuous warbling roar. He tilted his helm, Whirl had twisted his body just a bit, so that his cockpit would no longer obstruct his view, and Rung struggled to smile at him in a way that could possibly convey the depth of his affection and gratitude and _love_ for the rotary.

“...told me something pretty cool.” Whirl was saying, his voice coming waveringly into focus. “Apparently you can reverse the effects by getting a prescription of enriched EC Gel and injecting it like every orn.” Whirl grasped at Rung’s hips, prompting him to grind around his spike. Rung mewled as the sensitised nodes on the walls of his valve were compressed. “You still get the withdrawal, but if you wait it out your circuits can rebuild themselves. Well, so long as we don’t let them get totally fried. Pretty cool eh?” Rung couldn’t tell if the question was meant to be answered, but he trilled affirmation anyway.

“Y yes, yes,” he whimpered.

“Would you like that Doc?” Whirl inquired, moving one claw from his hip to the surface of his sparkplate, tracing the sensitive seams unhurriedly. Rung’s vents began to speed and hiccup as his senses returned to him, reminding him of the spike he still had a duty to ride.

“Yes, oh y yes _please,”_ he slurred, remembering his fingers in Whirl’s valve and pumping them in and out. His motions were sloppy and uneven but Whirl groaned and that was all Rung needed.

“F fragging… you know I can’t really tell if th- if that’s a ‘yes, lets go to Ratchets and get some of that gel, so I can go back to being a little nerd’ or a ‘yes, let my circuits get _utterly_ fragged because there’s nothing I’d like more than to be your permanent live in fragtoy’?” Whirl laughed dryly, optic raking over Rung’s frame, voracious. “You really aren’t being clear.” Rung smiled serenely down at him with dim, uncomprehending optics. Whirl might as well have been speaking Primal Vernacular.

“Yes, mate, yes, _please_ mate,” he moaned wholesparkedly, gazing into his mate’s optic with more worship and adoration than he could express with words.

“You... wanna be my good little fragtoy?” Whirl teased, Rungs hips jerking around his cord as a second wave of charge began building.

“Yes yes y-” Rung trailed off into a stuttering yelp as yet another overload slammed his system, his valve tightened against Whirl’s spike ravenously. “ _Yes_ ,” he sobbed, “yes, Whirl, please, oh yes, anything, anything _yes_ ,” The psychiatrist whimpered, clinging to Whirl so hard that his fingers scraped off thin flakes of paint.

“Ok, fragtoy it is,” Whirl sounded pleased, Rung felt delirious with bliss, “but tell me if you change your mind. Remember, if you get dosed too often… well, there’ll be no getting your brain back.”

 


	6. Laying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor, Whirl begins thinking longterm.

Rung felt the first twinge of discomfort as he came out of recharge five decaorns later. It was a sharp, cramping sensation: not sufficient to cause real pain but striking enough to take him by surprise. It faded as quickly as it had emerged, and Rung put it out of his mind, squirming slightly to press his plating to his mate’s. A tribreem later the pain returned, stronger this time. Rung onlined his optics, hand trailing down the front of his frame to rest over what seemed to be the source of the cramping. Another breem later he felt a third pang. It was definitely coming from his gestation tank. The eggs were ready.

“Whirl,” he called, voice wavering through a fog of static. When the rotary didn’t respond he whined and butted his forehelm against his mate’s shoulder. That was enough to partially rouse the other mecha, his optic flickering to life. “You said to tell you if- if it was h happening.” He offlined his optics and curled inwards as another sharp pain rippled through his tank. He could hear Whirl’s stabilizers rattling against the berth as he was jolted fully out of recharge, then further scraping as he got off of the slab. Suddenly he was lifted and Whirl’s field was all around him, anxious and nervous and gleeful. His thorax was lifted and he turned his helm aside to expose his neck, felt hot air venting against his cables, then a familiar spreading warmth.

He restarted his optics as he was transported to the other side of the suite and gently placed on one of the blankets piled on the floor. He watched Whirl with curiosity as he hurried back to the berth, where he procured a rag of thick mesh. The larger mech came back to the corner and settled behind him, legs spread on either side. He pulled the psychiatrist into a sitting position against his abdomen. Rung’s antenna brushed the underside of his cockpit.

“Alright, spread your legs and put your knees up, that’s a good Doc,” Whirl muttered. Rung obeyed, watched Whirl’s claws spread the mesh under his pelvic array. His valve was slick with lubricant and trace transfluid from the cycle prior, he felt some of the lukewarm fluid dribble past the entrance. Another contraction hit him, but instead of the pain he was bracing for there was an equally abrupt flash of _pleasure_. He whimpered, reaching out to grab at one of Whirl’s thighs.

“How you feeling Rung?” Whirl asked, voice tempered with worry even as his field sung with excitement.

“A alright,” he managed to respond, shifting his weight and bringing his fans online.

“Good, that’s real good,” the rotary purred, and Rung relaxed at the approval. The mesh of his valve had begun loosening, was producing more warm lubricant. Another contraction hit and he let out a stuttering moan, arching his spinal strut. His gestation tank seemed fuller somehow, even though he could feel that it was no longer pressing so firmly against his plating. He felt a twinge of fear, but Whirl’s field was so warm and pleased and _eager_ that it was easy to dismiss.

“Good Doc,” the rotary vented, trailing talons gently up and down his mate’s arm. “ _Very_ good. Now push.”

Rung buried his frontal denta into his lip and obeyed, fans kicking into gear as a shock of pleasure coursed through his frame. He pushed again and was unable to suppress a groan, optics offlining and head lolling against his mate’s abdomen. There was a pressure at his diaphragm, not unlike the feeling of Whirl’s ovipositor when he had first been bred. He felt it open slowly and release an egg followed by a gush of fluid. The egg was full enough to plug his valve entirely, keeping the gel sealed inside. A contraction hit and the walls of his valve squeezed the sphere, flooded his circuits with heat and pleasure and _need_ , and he let out a keen. The egg had some give but not much, it moved slowly down his valve as he pushed and stopped when he relaxed. Even when he relaxed the egg pressed relentlessly against the walls of his valve, straining the mesh and lighting up his sensory nodes. His systems were producing lubricant in quantities that they hadn’t since his withdrawal, it mixed with and thickened the gestation fluid trapped behind the egg and rendered his nodes even more sensitive.

“ _Good_ Eyebrows, you’re doing _so good_ , keep pushing,” Whirl’s voice said from on high. Rung clung to the order, a solid landmark in a thunderstorm of hazy sensation, and obeyed. It brought another wave of bliss and he tried to mumble something in response before coughing on the oral lubricant building at the back of his intake. He cleared his voxcoder and pushed again, squirmed and trilled as the egg moved further down his valve. He felt it press the edge of his ceiling node, whimpered and swayed his hips forward and back as if riding a spike. Another squeeze and it felt as if the cluster of sensors were being smothered against the wall of his abdominal plating. He overloaded with a sob, his spasming valve pushing the egg free, along with a gush of gel, while charge crackled across his frame.

He noticed the feeling of emptiness before he realised what it meant, blearily focusing his optics on the space between his legs. Now that it was resting peacefully on the mesh scrap, Rung could see that the egg wasn’t outrageously large, only about the size of his fist. It was streaked with a translucent gel and lubricant. A minute spark rested at it’s center and illuminated the rubbery shell and nutrient rich jelly inside the sphere.

He had never seen one in person. The sight filled him with a strange awe, but that was nothing compared to the glee in his mate’s field.

“Primus _look_ at that,” the rotary chirped. “It’s _beautiful_.” Rung buzzed in response. It felt so, so _good_. The contractions of his body and the fullness in his valve and Whirl’s field and Whirl’s praise dancing around him. Everything was just _perfect_.

He felt a pressure against his partially opened diaphragm, pushed reflexively and moaned at the blissful tingling it sent through his circuits. The next egg was the same size as the last, slightly easier to push into the passage of his valve but still capable of straining his sensory nodes. He moved his legs further apart, his mate shifting his own position to make way, and gripped Whirl’s plating as another contraction hit. The egg came fully out of his tank, along with another gush of fluid. He squirmed, feeling the warm gel slosh inside him, and gently squeezed the egg forwards. Small, rapid fire contractions turned out to be equally as pleasant as sustained ones, and as the second egg pushed against his ceiling node he greeted the feeling with a satisfied chirp. The psychiatrist moved his legs closer together, not yet closed but barely spread, and the egg pushed even tighter against his ceiling node. Another overload hit him, then a third in rapid succession. He lifted his hips and whimpered, trying to stay the egg over the cluster of nodes, but another contraction came and soon the second egg had joined to first on the mesh.

“ _Primus_ Rung,” Whirl half hissed and half hummed, optic bright.

The next egg came quickly. By the time the second had left his valve the third was entering it through the now gaping diaphragm, awash with jelly and lubricant. He pushed _hard_ this time, and managed to move the orb all the way to his ceiling node in one go. He tried to squeeze down on the sphere, but only managed to push it forward. It nudged at the mouth of his valve, and he vented sharply, pushing. The egg stretched his entrance slowly, his tendrils feeling at it’s shell in curiosity and pleasure. There was a faint texture to the shell, slightly rough but not at all irregular. As he stretched himself over the circumference of the egg he felt the charge in his frame peak, and he overloaded yet again. It was better than interface, it was better than being bred, it was _perfect_. With a small pop and a gush of fluid the spark joined its siblings.The joints of his pelvis were soaked with fluid, it had begun to turn tacky on his plating. His mate wrapped his claws around his waist, folded his legs as if preparing to get up. Rung emitted a small beep of protest, and Whirl stilled.

“You ok, Doc?” Rung tried to speak, but his voxcoder was jammed with oral lubricant, and hoarse with static besides. Instead he gestured towards his abdomen, tapped twice on his plating. “More?” He nodded, his helm bumping against the underside of Whirl’s cockpit, and the rotary’s field became even more deliriously pleased. “What a _good_ incubator you are, Doc. What a good carrier, what a _good fragtoy_.” He reached a claw down and ran his talon along the joint of his mate’s hip. Rung chirped a happy affirmative. He felt absolutely flustered by the praise, charge sparkling across the whole of his frame. His only discomfort was the strange sudden emptiness of his valve. “Now go on and push, Rung. I want to see the rest of my clutch.” Rung nodded fervently and spread his legs further apart, pushing the next egg out of his tank. It took considerable effort. He grunted and pushed again. The first three eggs had certainly loosened him up, but they had also taken a substantial amount of his lubricant with them, and the mesh walls of his valve protested further strain. Rung didn’t care, grit his denta and pushed again. Fatigue didn’t matter, fear didn’t matter, pain didn’t matter. His mate was happy and he was in bliss and he wanted to lay _forever_. Only the knowledge that Whirl wanted to see what he had forged kept him from deliberately slowing the process. His next overload came as soon as the egg brushed the outskirts of his ceiling node, and he endured several more before he successfully rallied the strength to push the sphere past the cluster of nodes and onto the mesh between his legs. As the fourth egg left him his limbs felt incredibly heavy, exhaustion sapping the strength from his actuators.

“All done?” Whirl asked. Rung was so tired and so loose and so fuzzy. Part of him wanted to whistle affirmation and surrender to his mate’s embrace. To be praised and held and fed. To slip into recharge. To draw out the laying for the whole cycle. Instead he onlined his vocaliser.

“More,” he croaked, after several false starts. He mewled softly as another contraction hit, bumping the fifth egg against his diaphragm. He was too exhausted to do much pushing on his own, no matter how much he wished to, so progress came slowly. Whirl was patient, running his claws gently over Rung’s frame and whispering what Rung assumed to be praise. The psychiatrist could detected Whirl’s voice, faintly, but he was long past parsing words or tone. He relied on his mate’s field to tell him if he was doing a good job. He seemed to be. In the very least, his mate was not displeased.

It was difficult to maintain awareness of anything when his circuits were burning with pleasure and his processor was fuzzy with exhaustion and bliss.He managed to move the egg past his ceiling node, optics sparking from the intensity of what felt like _constant_ overload. He sobbed, trembling against his mate. Whirl scraped his claw tips against his plating, not quite gentle but certainly careful. _One more,_ he thought. _Just one good push_. Rung vented shallowly, then pushed with a grunt, cleaning fluid running down his faceplate, pedes dug into the blanket and spinal strut stiff. He cried out as he felt the egg at his entrance, grit his deta and pushed even harder until his valve was empty and charge was dispersing over the whole of his frame.

For a while, everything was still and dark and quiet. Visual, auditory, sensory data came back to him in fragmented chunks until he could once more see and hear and feel. As the final aftershocks of pleasure faded he became aware of a new lightness in his gestation tank. A popup appeared in the corner of his vision, informing him that it was now emptied of spark signatures. He whimpered softly, lowered a shaky hand over his abdominal plating. He had gotten used to the pleasant fullness in his abdomen, felt strangely bereft by its absence. He didn’t want his vacation to be over. He didn’t _want_ to go back. He didn’t want the complexity and the stress and the responsibility and the effort. He wanted to stay here and be bred and ‘faced and to lay. He wanted his tank warm with sparks. He wanted his _mate_. Post overload haze kept the future vague and far away, but his worries persisted.

“Slag, five of em, that is a lot. Is it- are you done Rung?” Rung nodded weakly, allowing his frame to go slack and heavy. He was done. He was most _certainly_ done. He offlined his optics, preparing to enter a defrag cycle. Instead, Whirl’s claws grabbed at his frame, roughly manouvered him so that he was bent over on his knees, thorax pressed flush to the floor, the glistening pile of eggs resting between the arch of his spread legs. He yelped in surprise, dizzied by the maneuver.

Despite his confusion, Rung let out a soft welcoming exvent as he felt Whirl’s spike entering- oh- oh _not_ his spike. Or rather, not _just_ his spike. With his diaphragm already spiraled wide and his valve stretched from laying, it took mere clicks for Whirl to thrust his ovipositor clear into Rung’s gestation tank. Rung moaned as his cord pressed up against his ceiling node, still exquisitely sensitive from the laying process. Whirl entered him to the hilt, the barbs of his claspers struggling to find purchase against the thick gel and slick lubricant coating his valve. The small scratches they delivered as Whirl thrust frantically into him only added further flavor to the complex symphony of pleasure coursing through Rung’s sensoret, and he half sobbed, half moaned in response. He realised vaguely that the rotary’s voice was still going, that he was babbling something in what sounded like it could be distress.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Doc,” Whirl vented, not slowing his pace one bit. “Primus- frag- I was going to give you an _orn_!” He broke off into a moan that slowly morphed back into words as he sustained it. “I told myself I’d wait a whole orn but- but oh _Doc_. You are _gorgeous_ when you lay, you know that? You are so- so fragging- you’re hot enough to melt tungsten Rung. M making all those _noises_ for me.” Whirl reached down with a shaky claw, frantically but carefully stroked the side of his face, pressed as it was into the floor. “A and I just can’t wait I gotta- _ugh-_ I gotta give you- I gotta spark you up _now_.” He punctuated his last sentence with a brutal thrust that made Rung’s joints _grind_. He trilled in response.

Whirl was worried about him. That was so nice, so _kind_ of him. Rung was too spent to do much more than lay there and take it, but he nuzzled the rotary’s talon in an effort to reassure him that he was perfectly fine. Better than fine: _wonderful_.

“You don’t- you don’t mind do you Doc?” his mate asked. “Me filling you up with eggs so quick?” His ovipositor had already begun to thrum, buzzing in steady pulses up the shaft, coating his gestation tank and the back of his valve in fresh gel. His erratic thrusting was mixing his gel and Rung’s lubricant into a slurry that dripped down his already well coated thighs.

 _Eggs_? Of _course_ eggs sounded nice. Being filled up by Whirl, nice and full and heavy. Waiting in Whirl’s suite with no responsibilities beyond staying fueled and shutting his panel after they interfaced. Letting his eggs grow nice and big within him and then- and then getting to lay again, _oh_. Rung chirped softly.

“Please?” he croaked, his voxcoder quiet from disuse. A guilty shimmer moved through his mate’s field.

“Oh _Prima_ Doc, I hope that’s not a please _don’t_ because I’m kinda already-” Rung shook his helm. Well, shifted his helm ever so slightly back and forth.

“Please, mate,” he cooed in the most appealing voice he could synthesize. “ _Breed_ me?” Whirl’s pace slowed, and Rung feared that he had said the wrong thing until it started up again, even rougher and harder.

“Oh _Unicron,_ ” Whirl moaned “That is what I like to _hear_. Good Doc, good ‘bot, good _good_ Rung.” Rung whistled at the praise, squirming against his mate. “Primus, why did I wait so _long_ to d do this you are so fragging _beautiful_ Doc.” As delirious as he was with praise and pleasure, it occurred to Rung that Whirl’s claspers weren’t holding his ovipositor in place properly, that the eggs might not be deposited safely in his tank.

“Stay inside,” he pleaded weakly, tensing his valve as tightly as he could in an effort to embed Whirl’s barbs into the mesh lining. He needed Whirl to stay put, needed his eggs inside of him. This seemed to get Whirl’s attention, he paused and leaned down so that his helm brushed against Rung’s antennae and his cockpit pressed into the smaller mecha’s back.

“Say it again,” he whispered, almost in awe.

“St- stay inside?” Rung answered unsurely. Whirl complied, thrusting the length of his ovipositor and spike fully into the other mecha, who trilled approval.

“Say you want me to breed you,” Whirl growled.

“I want-”

“Beg me,” Whirl interrupted, voice high and giddy. “Beg me to frag you, tell me you love this, tell me you love _me_.” Rung swallowed, trying to free his voxcoder of oral lubricant as he restarted it.

“P please, please keep fragging me, keep- overload inside of me, _please_ , I love-” Rung broke off into a yelp as Whirl ground into his pelvis as if trying to strip their paint. “M mate it feels _so good_ it feels so _wonderful_ mate I love- Whirl I _love_ you.” He meant it, every word, even if glyphs felt suddenly like such an inadequate medium, too simple a system for describing such complex feelings.

“You want me to keep sparking you up, don’t you?” Whirl asked, voice ragged.

“Please,” Rung whimpered “Oh _Primus_ please do. I’ll be good, I’ll be a good carrier, I’ll be a good fragtoy, I’ll do anything _please_.”

“You’re glad I did this, ain’t you Doc?” Did what? It didn’t matter: of course he was glad, of _course_ he was thankful for everything his mate did for him.

“Yes, yes- please, _thank you_ ,“ he sobbed, cleaning fluid once more pooling in his optics. “I’m going- I’m about to-” His valve clenched tight enough to bury Whirl’s barbs into its mesh as his entire frame tensed in overload.

**\---**

He must have gone directly into recharge after that last overload, because he was next aware of his surroundings in his mate’s arms on their berth. He was barely online, and the soothing scrape of Whirl’s claw down his side was doing good work towards putting him back under. His mate’s field was full of satisfaction and glee, and his spark leapt to think he had been able to give him that joy. He chirped softly and rubbed his helm against his mate’s shoulder.

“Hey Doc,” he murmured. “Mind plugging into me?” Rung onlined his optics blearily, hand already rising to his hardline array. His joints were sore, badly in need of lubrication and rest, and he was clumsy at unspooling his cord and plugging it into Whirl’s port. On the fourth try he succeeded and let his arm hanging loosely at his side with a vent of relief. The feeling of his mate inside his systems, the muttered praise he received in return, was well worth the strain.

“Turn your firewall off,” Whirl ordered after a breem. Rung wasn’t sure which firewall he meant, shut all of them down rather than trouble his mate for specifics. Whirl’s presence had begun to solidify in his systems, he could feel him distinctly in one of the disused sectors of his processor. He seemed to be rifling through a category labeled ‘Patient Files.’ There was a small part of Rung that felt uneasy about Whirl going near that section of his brain module. It must have bled into his field because the rotary began trilling and rocking comfortingly.

“I’m not digging up dirt on anyone,” he soothed. “Just tagging some stuff for...” he trailed off into static. Rung’s attention remained fixed on his helm, on his bright optic. “Well, I explained the whole venom thing, how they feed on your sensory circuits and scrap? The thing is, they’ll pretty much eat _anything_ if you let them. And eventually ‘anything’ includes the parts of you that remember how to fuel and vent and circulate energon and junk. The ‘staying alive’ bits.” Whirl tilted his helm to look directly into Rung’s optics. They were hazy and dim, his mouth turned upwards in a serene smile. He did so _love_ the sound of his mate’s voice. “And... and that’s fine if you’re using a burner, but I… I kind of want to keep you around. So I’m marking some parts of you ‘do not touch.’ So you can stay online and talk and stuff. Other junks’ gotta go, so I’m tagging that stuff ‘eat away.’” Whirl’s optic remained fixed on his face, Rung licked his upper lip unconsciously.

“You know,” his mate hummed. “I think I’ll let you keep _my_ file. Maybe you’re using some of that data to be such a good pleasure droid for me, huh?” Rung’s smile widened as he saw his mate’s optic curve in amusement. He chirped in affirmative. His mate bent his neck forwards, nuzzled his forehelm, and Rung trilled bliss.

“I love you too, Rung.” Whirl whispered, almost too quiet to make out.

 


	7. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung and Whirl reach an arrangement beneficial for the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad u guys are super invested in what will happen next but I tagged this thing "bad end" and said in the notes of the first chapter that Whirl was going to get away with all of this so there was really no need to be in suspense.

Rung reached his hand down past his cord to thread his fingers through the thatch of tendrils that writhed at the mouth of his valve. He plunged three digits inside, venting hard at the tight fit. As he pumped them inwards his tendrils gripped at his thumb and pinkie fingers, curling around the digits pleadingly. His mate had had him put something that pulsed a buzzing electricity inside of his valve, it rested against his ceiling node, magnetised in place, and it was _awful_. He wanted relief, he wanted to _overload_. He had stroked his spike until the mesh was raw and fingered his valve until his hands were so slick with lubricant that his tendrils could barely grasp them and he _still wouldn’t overload_. He felt another swell of charge and quickened his pace, but far more rapidly than it had built the charge died down and he was denied his satisfaction. 

He tugged his fingers out of his valve, curled up on his side and thrust the digits into his mouth, sucking them clean moodily. He wanted to be a good fragtoy for Whirl, he really _truly_ did. He was self servicing, he had left the horrible buzzing thing in place, he was being quiet and fueling regularly. He wanted to obey, he _would_ obey, but it would be so much _easier_ if his mate was there. It would be so much easier with his field around him and his claws on his plating and-- _Primus--_ his spike inside him. He whined and squirmed on the recharge slab, too frustrated to care that his movements were only serving to jostle the toy inside of him. 

“Sweetspark, I’m home!” 

At the sound of Whirl’s voice Rung’s optics blew wide, he snapped his helm to face the doorway. His face lit with eager excitement when he saw his mate in the entranceway, closing the door behind him with a woosh. Immediately he pushed himself up off of his side, arranging shaking limbs in preparation to slide from the slab to the floor, to crawl to his mate’s pedes. Whirl would be able to soothe him, would know how to fix him. His mate would make him overload. His mate would provide, would give him what he needed. Before he could leave the berth, though, his mate was upon him: placing his claws around his thorax, under his arms, lifting him. 

Rung kicked out his legs, immediately wrapping them around his mate’s waist in anticipation and watching with eager hunger as the rotary pulled back his interfacing panel, primary pressurising instantly, and lowered the smaller mecha on to his spike. Whirl thrust up sharply to make sure he was buried to the hilt, then gently pushed him onto his back so that his upper body rested on the slab. His lower body hung off the edge, supported only by Rung’s legs around his hips and Whirl’s cord inside his valve. Whirl grasped his waist carefully and jerked his hips, pulling out of and thrusting into Rung, starting up a frantic pace.

“Primus Doc you are _soaking_.” he groaned “That vibe was definitely a good investment and ooh it feels good on the spike too.” Rung trilled in welcome and agreement, head lolling back as pleasure radiated from his valve in steady potent bursts. “You must be eager for an overload, aren’t you?” Rung nodded frantically, looking upwards into his mate’s optic with a pleading whine. “Maybe if you’re good you’ll get one. For now I just want to use you as- as my mindless little spike socket. So I’m just going to leave that suppression program running, okay?” Rung whimpered but continued nodding. When charge started crackling through his frame, building to a nearly unbearable peak and then dissipating instantly, he did not allow disappointment to color his field. 

His mate liked him to be happy. His mate would take care of him soon. There was no need to be greedy. Whirl continued to thrust, pausing to angle his spike in a way that ground their toy into Rung’s ceiling node. Charge built and faded in rapid bursts, Rung bit his glossa to suppress a sob. He had to be good for his mate. 

After what felt like a joor Whirl’s voxcoder fritzed, he overloaded bursts of charge and transfluid into Rung’s valve. The former psychiatrist ached his back, vents gasping and seams crackling with charge, and then collapsed strutlessly as it dissipated. His legs slipped from Whirl’s hips, but his mate caught him before he could fall off the berth. He lifted Rung onto the slab, joining him shortly afterwards. They curled on their sides, facing towards each other, venting heavily. Rung could just slip into recharge, were it not for the unbearable amount of arousal currently burning his circuitry.

“Open your panel,” Whirl muttered, and Rung complied, droning sadly as his mate’s transfluid ticked out. Whirl nudged his thigh between his mate’s knees. Rung spread his legs eagerly, then just as quickly wrapped them around the limb, pressing the still heated plating against his exposed valve and grinding back and forth with a whimper. The pleasure of the friction wasn’t nearly so intoxicating as the approval and arousal that danced through his mate’s field in response. “ _Primus_ Doc, it’s like you were forged for this,” he hissed in awe, unbothered by the lubricant and transfluid now smeared over his plating. Rung beeped a brief, giddy tune.

“Alright, lets see how those eggs are doing, hm?” Whirl asked after a breem, his claws clacking together with excitement, “Have you been a _good_ incubator? Staying fueled? Putting your cover back in place so you don’t waste any of that premium transfluid I’ve been giving you?” Rung’s brows furrowed about about four words into the last questions, unable to follow. His confusion drove the meaning of the first two questions clear from his processor. He could _tell_ his mate wanted an answer. He projected apology and emitted a distressed beep.

“Are the eggs safe?” Whirl clarified, ever patient. Oh! Rung nodded eagerly, moving his hands to press at his lower abdomen, where the armor had loosened and he could feel the growing clutch resting in his gestation tank, the flickering of newly formed sparks. Yes, the eggs were safe. Safe and good and healthy. He was a good carrier for his forge. 

“Awww, look at you getting all sentimental about being sparked up,” Whirl crooned. “Cute. Jack us into each other so I can say ‘hi’ to the little buggers.” Rung dutifully drew back his hardline panel and released his connector, plugging into Whirl’s port before repeating the action with Whirl’s cord and his own port. Rung watched as Whirl sent queries to his systems about frame temperature, mineral levels, fuel quality, sparkpulse, receiving chunks of complex data back. The numbers were indecipherable and a little frightening to Rung, and he waited eagerly for his mate to tell him if everything was okay. He searched Whirl’s wide yellow optic, now dim with concentration, with no small amount of nervousness. They’d never had a problem with any previous clutch, but knowing that did little to settle Rung’s protective instincts.A small part of him still feared Whirl might abandon him if he failed in his duty as incubator.

“Everything looks hunky-dory,” Whirl concluded, trailing a claw down Rung’s side and curving his optic in approval. Rung vented softly in relief, smile widening. He offlined his optics, rubbed against his mate’s cockpit with affection. “Hey…” Whirl began, resetting his voxcoder “...You’re happy, ain’t you Doc?” his voice sounded uneasy. His mate was... upset about something? Why? The eggs were healthy, there was no reason to be upset. Rung buzzed reassurance, nuzzled his faceplates into the soft cabling of his mate’s neck, kissed them. His poor mate had so much to worry about, it wasn’t fair at all.

“ _Yes_ ,” he answered, ardent.

“Got everything you need?” Whirl asked, still with a twinge of worry in his field. Rung projected his adoration, his contentment, as best he could.

“Everything I need, everything I want.” He pulled his face back from the rotary’s neck, lifted his hand and pressed it gently to the side of his helm, meeting his optic. “I have _you_ Whirl,” he said in awe and wonder. “You take care of me. You’re my _world_.” Whirl’s field relaxed, his optic curved in pleasure. Rung made a note to say that more often, _you’re my world_. His mate seemed to like it. “I love you.” Another phrase that never failed to please his mate, his reward for remembering it was a talon trailed down the side of his body, between his legs, slipped into his wet valve. He whimpered, resisting the urge to flex around it, to buck his hips. Mate had told him to stay _still_ when his claws were inside him, it was dangerous to move too much.

“I love you too, Rung,” he murmured, moving his talon in slow circles. The tip brushed up against the toy still magnetised to Rung’s ceiling node, and it was everything the former psychiatrist could do to not churn his hips against the pressure. “You’re happier now than you were before, right?” Before...? Before his mate had returned to his hab suite? Before his mate had overloaded inside of him? Rung couldn’t imagine anything else that his mate could possibly mean by ‘before.’

“Yes, of course, _yes_ ,” he whined, legs trembling around his thigh.

“You’re glad I did this, right?” Whatever his mate meant by that, the answer _had_ to be yes. He couldn’t think of a single thing his mate had ever done that he wasn’t glad of.

“Yes, yes I’m so glad. I’m so _thankful_. Thank you, thank you mate. Th-” he broke off into a groan, squirming at the too light touch of the talon inside of him. “Mate, _please_ can I-”

“ _No_. Remember the first time? You didn’t even notice you were getting all torn up. _I_ didn’t even notice until I gave you my servo to clean and saw the energon. It took a whole orn for your self repair and the nanites to get your mesh knit back right.”

“It didn’t hurt,” Rung whined pitifully. He was telling the truth, the lacerations to his valve had felt _amazing_. Everything his mate did to him felt _amazing_ , lately. Whirl said that was good, meant his circuits had been ‘irreversibly rewritten.’ Whatever that meant.

“I know, but it wasn’t good for you. And remember, an orn of repair means an orn without my ‘deagus in you, no matter _how_ pretty you beg.” Rung shuddered. His mate was right, an orn without being spiked was _torture_. Swallowing his mate’s cord was nice enough, but spiking him was just not satisfying, no matter how hard he tried. “Speaking of which.” Whirl’s presence in his systems shifted, he made a subtle alteration to a line of code. “Now, what can I do for _you_ , Eyebrows?” Rung’s spark leapt, it was agony not to squeeze the wall of his valve down on his mate’s talons.

“Please mate, please ‘face me,” he begged, frame trembling and cleaning fluid pooling in his scopes. “I n need you inside my _frame_ , not just my systems.” Whirl carefully withdrew his talons from his valve and from the tendrils that had tried to tangle around it. Rung mewled, grinding against his thigh in an effort to stimulate the sensitive tentacles at the mouth of his valve. The maddening toy continued to pulse against his ceiling node and he could feel charge building throughout his frame. Whirl took hold of his waist, pulling his thigh out from between his knees. He partially transformed his cockpit out of the way (a feature he’d had installed a few orns ago to make finding plausible interfacing positions easier) and pulled Rung flush to his plating, guiding his legs around the rotary’s hips. Rung keened, arching his spinal strut eagerly, and Whirl nudged him into position, the head of his spike pressing at his entrance. He thrust upwards, primary knocking against the toy still inside him, and Rung cried out as his charge finally, _finally_ built into overload. His optics sparked, his actuators tensed, arcs of electricity skipped over his plating from pede to helm. His frame spasmed, squeezing Whirl’s cord with the walls of his valve, pressing the toy against his ceiling node, and he overloaded again. He moaned against his mate’s neck, babbling praise and gratefulness. His words devolved into chirps and hiccups, glyphs eaten up by static as he churned his hips, riding out the aftershocks of his double overload.

“Good, very good,” Whirl muttered, making no move to pull away his spike. Rung trilled softly, the noise almost lost below the sound of his fans roaring. “Is that everything you need?” the rotary asked, generous as always. _Almost_. Rung arched his head back, exposing his throat with a whine. Whirl hadn’t bitten his neck since the beginning of the cycle. He wanted the warm flood of venom sensitizing his circuity, making everything warm and soft and easy.

“ _Primus_ ,” the rotary vented, bending his helm to nuzzle Rung’s neck. Nuzzle, not bite. Rung whimpered with disappointment.“I love to see you begging for my venom, begging me to ‘face you mindless. You want to be my fragtoy so bad, don’t you?” Rung mewled by way of answer. “Such a good, eager little pleasure droid. You want me to keep you nice and full: of my spike, of my eggs, of my t-fluid, of my _venom_. You _need_ it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Rung gasped, hand rising to clutch at the side of his mate’s helm. “I need you, p please, I need you _so bad_.”

“You want your _medicine_ , Doc?” Whirl teased, and Rung was intimately familiar with the response he wanted to hear when he asked that question.

“Yes, I’m v very ill, I’m so sick and I n need you to fix me.” He whined, turning his helm to the side to more efficiently expose his fuel lines. He was pleased to hear Whirl’s engine rev in response.

“Well, I got a _duty of care_ to help you, don’t I?” Whirl joked. Rung let out a truly impressive whine, it bubbled into a groan as he pressed his mate’s helm against his neck.

“Please please _please_ , Whirl, _please,_ ” he begged, tendrils grasping pleadingly at his mate’s plating. The anticipation, the teasing was _unbearable_ , even when he knew Whirl had to take mercy on him _eventually_. Whirl snickered against his cabling and put his claws around his waist. He started bouncing him slowly on his ‘deagus, which only made his mate whine even louder, his hands beginning to scrape topcoat from the rotary’s helm.

“Alright Eyebrows, here it comes,” Whirl cooed before burying his fangs into Rung’s neck, injecting venom that spread through his systems like molten gold. He offlined his optics and simply _felt:_ the tingling spreading through his circuitry, the frantic crackle of sensitized nodes sending messages beneath his plating, the hum of building charge. The pleasure of having the toy against his ceiling node, the cord inside his valve, redoubled. He clicked contentedly, his frame radiating fullness and bliss. Whirl’s field was all around him, buzzing satisfaction. “That’s a _good_ ‘bot, keep moving those hips.” Rung let out a pleased trill, his body relaxed and complacent even as he shifted to ride the rotary’s spike faster and harder.

“ _I love you_ ,” he exvented, face pressed to the base of his mate’s neck, careless. He felt heavy and warm and so very content, held securely in his mate’s arms, his mind more at peace than it had been in vorns. Whirl hummed, ran a careful talon over the top of Rung’s crest, optic softening.

“Right back at you Rung.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A final note because there appears to be some confusion about how Whirl is "getting away with this." Since I discussed the plot of this fic extensively with the commissioner, I did not lay everything out as explicitly as I would have otherwise. It did not help that this fic is written from the perspective of someone who is rapidly losing their cognitive abilities and doesn't understand what is happening to him. I assumed careful reading and deduction would be enough to figure it out, but I have always been terrible at theory of mind and it obviously did not work out that way. 
> 
> Basically, Rung applied for indefinite medical leave, which would not be suspicious since he filled out all of the needed paperwork and had seemed "ill" lately. As the fic mentioned, Whirl continued having Rung sign datapads to excuse his absence. This isn't exactly an ironclad plan, but Rung is defined by the fact that he is easily forgotten and overlooked, even by someone he'd known for six centuries. He's probably not even listed under the right designation in the ship's roster. If you could make any mech of the Lost Light "disappear," Rung would probably be the best target. Even if someone went looking for him there is no reason for them to look in Whirl's hab suite. 
> 
> I hope this clears things up. I may edit the fic later to make this more explicit.


End file.
